The Cape Wind Project is proposed to be America’s first offshore wind farm. It is envisioned to be located on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, miles from the nearest shore, where 130 wind turbines will harness the wind to produce up to 420 megawatts of energy. Under average wind conditions, the Cape Wind Project could provide up to three quarters of the electricity needs of Cape Cod and the Islands in the southern coast of Massachusetts. Although from the point of view of energy production, it taps into a clean, renewable, and environmentally advantageous source, it is not a project without controversy. The project has experienced opposition from those concerned with other factors, such as visual impacts, potential impacts to boating, bird flight patterns, and more. But there is also significant support from environmental and labor groups, and the project has received favorable reviews by permitting agencies. This paper presents the project within the context of the company that is developing the project, its founder’s vision, and the technical, environmental legal, public relations, and political issues encountered in its history from 2000 to 2008. The problems of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the European experience with wind power are also recognized in context. While the need for and usage of electric power energy grows annually, this project can be seen as a business case study of the trade-offs the United States must face for its energy future.
From the sails that captured the wind on ships of ancient times, to the quaint images of windmills in the Netherlands and on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, harnessing of wind power for human needs is a technical application that has existed for centuries. However, modern day technology and advances in the capabilities of engineers to implement large-scale infrastructure solutions have made the generation of wind energy practical on a scale to power entire cities and to supplement the overall capacity of the power grid from other sources of energy.
The Cape Wind Project is proposed to be America’s first offshore wind farm. Located on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound, miles from the nearest shore, 130 wind turbines will harness the wind to produce up to 420 megawatts of energy. Under average wind conditions, the Cape Wind Project could provide up to three quarters of the electricity needs of Cape Cod and the Islands on the southern coast of Massachusetts.
This paper presents the project within the context of the company that is developing the project, and the technical, environmental, legal, public relations, and political issues encountered in its history from 2000 to 2008. The problems of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the European experience with wind power are also recognized in context. While the need for and usage of electric power energy grows annually, this project can be seen as a business case study of the trade-offs the United States must face for its energy future.
Origins of the Project Vision
The Company
Energy Management Inc. (EMI), is a Massachusetts-based energy company that was founded by Jim Gordon in 1975. As Gordon tells it, he was driving one morning in the fall of 1973 to Boston University where he was completing an undergraduate degree and pondering his plans to move to California and enroll in a graduate film studies program. As he happened to look down and noticed that his car’s fuel gage was on empty, he drove to a nearby gas station and was astonished to see a two-block gas line that he reluctantly joined. It was during the midst of the oil shortages and energy crisis of that decade; that event was the start of the abandonment of his plans to study film, and led eventually to an entrepreneurial career in energy consulting.
The company’s initial services were consulting for paper mills in New England on how to redesign their operations to reduce energy costs. Entering the decade of the 1980s, EMI set its sights on a new technology and business opportunity in the form of new natural gas pipelines that were under construction, having realized that there was a potential to site cleaner natural gas power plants as an alternative to the heavy oil and coal that supplied the bulk of the electricity being used in New England at that time. EMI principals developed some of New England’s first natural-gas fired cogeneration and independent power projects as well as the first generation of merchant electric plants in the United States. Subsequently, Cape Wind Associates was formed by EMI principals to advance and become the utility owner and operator of the Cape Wind Project.
Past Projects Leading to Cape Wind
Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s EMI principals developed six natural-gas fired power plants and one biomass power plant, all in New England. Adding natural gas to the electric generation mix offered several advantages for New England. Natural gas allowed for much lower pollution emissions and contributed to greater energy source diversification. Because of these advantages, natural gas power plants also became easier to site than more highly polluting coal, oil, or nuclear power plants. Consequently, almost all of the electric generation capacity added to New England since 1980 has been from natural gas. Currently natural gas accounts for 40 percent of electric generation supply in New England.
By the late 1990s, company principals began to doubt that New England could continue to rely on new natural gas facilities to meet all of the growing electric demand. The pipelines bringing the natural gas to the region from Canada and the Gulf Coast were becoming tapped out, particularly in cold winter conditions when substantial supplies of natural gas were needed to meet heating needs. The price of natural gas was edging upward and EMI officials began to wonder if the time might be right to sell off its natural gas generation facilities and go to work on “the next big thing.”
In 2000, EMI principals sold their generation assets and thus had working capital to use for whatever energy challenge the company took on next. The bulk of the project’s employees went to work for the new owners of the power plants and EMI retained a dozen members of its core development and engineering team.
By Land or by Sea?
The engineers at EMI were presented with a challenge to come up with an economically viable utility-scale nonemitting renewable electricity generation project for New England. The first task was to choose a technology. The second task would then be to find a site and develop a project proposal. EMI studied wind, wave, tidal, solar, and fuel cell technology and concluded that for a region like New England, wind power offered the greatest potential and would be the most cost competitive. The U.S. Department of Energy Wind Resource Map indicates that there are two regions with strong wind resources, the mountains of northern New England, and the region in and around Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Thus the engineers and development staff were divided up into two teams, the “mountain team” and the “offshore team,” to evaluate potential sites.
The mountain team found early on that some of the best sites for wind resources were very remote locations that lacked nearby transmission lines; if there were transmission lines, they were very small, designed to service a sparse population with low electric demand. It is generally the case in New England that a wind farm developer must pay all of the transmission costs to connect the power, including enhancements to the electric system if it is otherwise unable to handle the new load.
The offshore team found there was significant offshore wind power potential in the region. Not only was there a much larger area offshore than on land for potential wind power development, but the winds are also stronger offshore. Another advantage of offshore wind is substantially reduced turbulence. The breeze that supplies wind turbines on land is bouncing off features of the topography—hills, trees, buildings—which creates air turbulence and reduces the efficiency of the wind turbines. An offshore environment lacks these turbulence-creating features and allows for more efficient operations of wind turbines.
EMI considered all of the information that had been collected by the two teams and then traveled to Europe to visit existing offshore wind farms and get acquainted with the people who designed, built, and were operating these facilities to learn from their experience. At that time in 2001, Europe collectively had ten years of operational experience with offshore wind turbines. EMI engineers visited offshore wind farms in Denmark and Sweden and were provided tours by maintenance personnel and wind turbine manufacturers. Fig. 1 shows a photograph of the Middlegrunden wind facility offshore near Copenhagen Harbor in Denmark.
Fig. 1. Middlegrunden wind facility offshore near Copenhagen Harbor, Denmark
The European Experience
It was clear from the tours and meetings with European wind utility operators that there were some essential design criteria for successful siting of an offshore wind farm to handle the engineering challenges of an offshore environment as well as the challenge of making the project economically viable. The site criteria found to be most important are:
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Strong wind resource;
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Shallow water depths;
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Fairly low extreme storm wave heights; and
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Reasonable proximity to a robust electric transmission system.
The importance of a strong wind resource is a common need for offshore and onshore wind. The electricity output from a wind turbine is proportional to the cube of the wind speed, and therefore a small difference in wind speed can produce a substantial difference in power output. For example, doubling the wind speed from ten miles per hour to twenty miles per hour results in an eight-fold increase in wind power production from a wind turbine.
The existing offshore wind projects in Europe were constructed in fairly shallow water, generally sixty feet or less. The relatively shallow water depths are necessary to employ the two foundation types that have been used for economically viable offshore wind turbines in Europe, which are monopiles and gravity foundations. A monopile is typically a single large-diameter steel pipe pile that would be driven into a sandy bottom to depths of sixty feet or greater. Gravity foundations are usually preferable for subsurface conditions where there is shallow bedrock, and involve placing a heavy concrete foundation on the sea bottom, and usually have a much larger diameter footprint. It is still the case that the only demonstrated and economically viable offshore wind foundations are suitable for shallow water.
Wave design considerations are very important in planning for an offshore wind farm. To provide a structurally sound and serviceable structure that will operate through its design life, the design must be suitable for the extreme conditions based on a fifty-year storm return period including the coincident conditions of wind, wave, current, and storm surge. This has been adopted as standard design criteria in the offshore wind industry.
Of the three primary offshore environmental factors (wind, wave, and current), waves are normally the most critical factor when designing offshore structures. Waves can transmit large amounts of kinetic energy and pressure forces that produce large, repeated loads on structures, and contain a wide range of frequencies that have a significant influence on the dynamic behavior of the structure. Wave loading from both nonbreaking and breaking waves must be considered. For structural design, it is important to determine the total maximum force and the total maximum moment about the seabed interface acting on the pile. An operational consideration is related to average wave heights, since a wind farm located in frequently rough seas would require a heavy and costly reliance upon helicopters to transport maintenance crews, whereas at sites with calmer seas, one can rely primarily upon boats to transport the maintenance crews. While transmission costs are paid for by the government in the case of most European offshore wind farms, in the United States these costs, like the capital costs to build the offshore wind farm, will be borne by the developer. Given the expense of buried transmission lines and the efficiency losses that grow with every extra mile of cable, being located a reasonable distance to shore is important.
Offshore Site Selection
Based on the European experience, EMI surveyed the coastline of New England in relation to the four site criteria described previously. Of particular consideration was the tradeoff for proximity to shore. If the wind farm were to be located closer to shore, there could potentially be too great of a visual impact, but location at a further distance from shore would mean longer transmission lines, greater water depths, and rougher seas. It was found that most of the New England coastline was unable to satisfy one or more of the four criteria. There was one major exception—Nantucket Sound, offshore of Cape Cod.
Nantucket Sound has strong winds and contains a large shoal that is an optimal distance from shore when balancing visual impact with the cost of transmission. Furthermore, Nantucket Sound offered great protection from an open North Atlantic extreme storm wave. One of the necessary ingredients in building a large wave is fetch—the distance of open water that a wave can build in size—and the shape of Nantucket Sound offers considerable protection to mitigate the fetch. The most promising shoal in Nantucket Sound was Horseshoe Shoal, so named because it looks something like a horseshoe resting on its side. It offered the shallow water that is ideal for offshore wind turbine siting, and another benefit was that Horseshoe Shoal was outside of the boating channels. The site is also outside the air flight paths that cross over Nantucket Sound.
The EMI staff was aware that Cape Cod had a long history with using wind power. A tourist coming to Cape Cod will see windmill insignias on entering town signs and on storefronts, and the few windmills that remain intact grace the covers of visitors’ guides as must-see destination points. Like the lighthouses, windmills are considered to be part of Cape Cod’s charm. The technical distinction between a windmill and a wind turbine is that a windmill converts wind into mechanical energy, whereas a turbine converts wind into electrical energy. In fact, in the early nineteenth century, Cape Cod and the Islands had over a thousand working windmills: some were pumping well water, some were grinding grain, but most of them were paddling the salty waters of Nantucket Sound onto shore to evaporate the water and produce salt.
Project Design
The Cape Wind Project is designed for a maximum delivered electrical energy capacity of , which will be connected to the existing NSTAR Electric transmission system servicing Cape Cod and the New England region. There are 130 turbine units in the array, which is a function of the energy generation capacity of each wind turbine multiplied by the desired installation capacity of to produce a combined maximum delivered energy generating capacity of approximately after consideration of inherent energy losses within the system. This generating capacity is based on the design wind velocity of thirty miles per hour (mph) [fourteen meters per second (m/s)] and greater, up to the maximum operational velocity of . Based on the average wind speed of , as measured over three years at Cape Wind’s on-site Scientific Measurement Devices Station (SMDS), the net energy production delivered to the regional transmission grid will be approximately .
This is an amount of annual electricity production that a heavy oil power plant would produce by consuming 113 million gallons of oil or a coal power plant would provide by consuming of coal. Cape Wind’s power output in average wind conditions will be , which represents over 75 percent of the average electric demand of Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket—.
Array Layout and Orientation
The wind turbine array configuration represents a technically efficient and economically feasible array for the Cape Wind Project in order to meet the desired energy generating capacity and the continuation of existing watersheet use (commercial and recreational fishing, boating, etc.) and present uses of the seabed. In order to generate maximum wind energy production, the wind turbines will be arranged in specific parallel rows in a grid pattern to obtain an optimal energy-generating arrangement. The orientation of the wind turbine array was established as a result of a wind power density analysis conducted by Cape Wind to determine maximum potential wind-generating capacity. The array layout and orientation is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Plan of Layout and Orientation of the Wind Turbine Array
For the Horseshoe Shoal location of Nantucket Sound, it was determined that orientation of the array in a northwest to southeast alignment provides optimal wind energy potential for the wind turbines. This alignment will position the wind turbines perpendicular to prevailing winds, which are generally from the northwest in the winter and from the southwest in the summer for this geographic area of Nantucket Sound. The wind turbines will have a computer-controlled system that turns the turbine system appropriately into the wind. In addition to maximizing potential wind energy production, the wind turbines must also be sufficiently spaced within the array in order to minimize power losses due to wind shear and turbulence caused by other wind turbines within the array.
At the perimeters of the array, each of the turbines will be lighted with one red flashing FAA light on top of the nacelle [approximate height of (82.5) above mean low lower water (MLLW)] and all wind turbines will have two flashing amber USCG lights on the lower access platform [approximate height of above MLLW]. Lights will vary in intensity depending on the specific location of the individual turbine, and all lights will be synchronized to flash simultaneously in order to effectively mark the entire wind park as one entity when viewed from the air.
Wind Turbine
As shown on Fig. 3, the main components of a wind turbine are the rotor, the transmission system, the generator, the yaw system, and the control and electrical systems, which are located within the wind turbine’s nacelle. The nacelle is the portion of the wind turbine that encompasses the drive train and supporting electromotive generating systems that produce the wind-generated energy. The nacelle includes maintenance cranes, access hatches, and also has wind sensors located on its peak. The Cape Wind Project will utilize pitch-regulated upwind wind turbines with active yaw and a three-blade rotor. The wind turbine nacelle hub height will be approximately from the MLLW.
Fig. 3. Main Components of Wind Turbine and Approximate Dimensions
The wind turbine rotor has three blades manufactured from fiberglass-reinforced epoxy mounted on the hub. The rotors will have an overall diameter of approximately . The rotor blades are pitch regulated to continually control their pitch angle to the wind in order to optimize wind energy production with minimal noise. The blades will be pitched to prevent rotation when wind speed exceeds and will also engage the disc brake system to positively lock the rotor. Each blade is protected against potential damage from lightning strikes by copper plates mounted in the blade tips and a grounding wire brought back to the rotor and connected to the tower by carbon brushes. This establishes a proper ground connection and will dissipate any lightning strikes. Temporary icing of a rotor blade would activate vibration sensors causing turbine shutdown in order to prevent rotor damage or hazard from flying ice.
Tower
The wind turbines’ nacelle will be mounted on a manufactured steel tower. This tower will have internal access ladders and platforms providing access to the nacelle. There are various auxiliary structures such as access platforms, ladders, and boat docking structures attached to the tower to allow service vessels to transfer technicians and equipment for routine maintenance of the wind turbines. The tower is accessed from the platform by a galvanized steel hatch door. Access to the platform is from the boat ladder through the lockable hatch.
The main support tower will have a base diameter of either approximately or at the MLLW datum plane (depending upon water depth). At the base of the tower, a prefabricated access platform and service vessel landing [approximately from MLLW] will be provided. Design criteria for the turbine and foundation system include the hurricane criteria as indicated in the Massachusetts building codes and will also be designed to the loads specified in the controlling design standards.
Foundation
The steel tower and nacelle will be mounted on a welded steel monopile foundation, which represents the most commonly used design solution in conventional offshore installations, and is a well-proven structural foundation type for offshore applications. Based upon preliminary geotechnical and structural engineering evaluations, the monopiles that will be located within the project area will utilize two different diameter foundation types depending on water depth. Water depths from (0–12.2 meters) will utilize a diameter monopile, and water depths from (12.2–15.2 meters) will utilize an diameter monopile. The piles will be hollow open-ended steel pipe piles that will be driven approximately into the seabed. This will provide appropriate structural stability and load-bearing capacity, allowing the lateral and axial loading forces of the wind turbine to be transferred to the seabed.
The monopile foundation structure provides an added benefit of a more flexible foundation compared to a gravity-based foundation system. The monopole foundation design provides aerodynamic damping capabilities to increase the wind turbine’s design life. The aerodynamic damping capability results in a design that offers considerably reduced fatigue from aerodynamic loading compared to more rigid foundation types. Unlike a gravity base foundation system, the installation of the monopile foundation will not require excavation or backfill of bottom sediments. Thus, it also represents the foundation type system that is the easiest to install and results in the least amount of seabed disturbance. Minimal disturbance of sand and sediment will take place by pile-driving activities.
Scour Mats
After installation of the pile foundation, some localized scour around the monopile foundation may occur depending on the location of the wind turbine on Horseshoe Shoal and local sediment transport conditions. Scour protection will be designed and installed using scour mats and/or rock armoring. Scour mats are synthetic fronds designed to mimic seafloor vegetation that would afford the necessary scour protection while minimizing potential alterations to the benthic and fish communities typically associated with Horseshoe Shoal. This is because the synthetic fronds (scour control mats), when secured to the bottom as a network, trap sediments and become buried.
The mats are made of buoyant polypropylene fronds and polyester webbing that is anchored securely to the seabed. Independent tests by the product manufacturer have found the fronds to be chemically inactive and biologically inert. The mats do not breakdown in seawater over time and are fully ultraviolet stabilized—once installed underwater they are unaffected by ultraviolet light. In the event that scour mats are found to be less effective than anticipated, more traditional scour protection methods (such as rip-rap) are available as an alternative. The rock armor scour control design requires the use of filter layer material and rock armor stones.
Offshore Marine Environment and Design Life
The wind turbines have been specially designed for the offshore marine environment and include a number of special features that are not found on land-based wind turbines. Some of the items that support the marine usage of the proposed wind turbines are as follows:
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Air tight tower and nacelle;
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Dehumidifying system;
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Heat-exchanger cooling system for gear box and generator;
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Offshore corrosion protection; and
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Permanent crane in nacelle capable of lifting smaller components.
For offshore applications, the nacelle is specially designed to seal the interior from salt spray and moisture while providing controlled environmental conditions for its working components.
Coatings have been carefully selected to provide protection from the marine environment and to maximize coating life. The only components of the project that would come into regular contact with seawater and be subject to potential interactions between water, encrusting organisms, and sediment are the welded steel monopile foundations and their appurtenances. The monopile will not be coated. The transition piece of the wind turbines, which will be located on top of the monopile at the water line/splash zone, will, however, be coated. The portions of the structural steel and steel surfaces not directly exposed to seawater, such as the tower (above the transition piece), will be coated with an epoxy-polyamide. In addition, cathodic protection utilizing sacrificial anodes made of pure aluminum would be utilized on the piles.
The coatings are for corrosion protection only and no antifouling paints or coatings will be applied. The limited area of contact between the coated transition piece and seawater and the protective anodes on the monopile, would minimize the potential for undesirable interactions between water, encrusting organisms, and sediment. The selected coating is not anticipated to degrade substantially or leach materials into the water column over the life of the project, as evidenced by its widespread use in marine applications (i.e., ship hulls, bridge structures, etc.). Therefore, no measurable change in these interactions is expected after project installation.
The wind turbines have a design life span of twenty years, although such estimates are conservative and based on design turbulence and wave conditions. Wind turbine foundations and towers have been engineered using the one-hundred-year period as a primary design standard. By incorporating good maintenance and ongoing inspections, the life span of the equipment can be significantly extended.
Interconnecting the Turbines
An electric service platform (ESP) will be required to be installed and maintained within the approximate center of the wind turbine array. The ESP will serve as the common interconnection point for all of the wind turbines within the array. Each wind turbine will interconnect with the ESP via a submarine cable system. These cable systems will interconnect with circuit breakers and transformers located on the ESP in order to transmit wind-generated power through the shore-connected submarine cable system. The two submarine circuits will then ultimately connect to the existing land-based NSTAR Electric transmission system on Cape Cod.
The ESP will provide electrical protection and inner-array cable sectionalizing capability in the form of circuit breakers. It will also include voltage step-up transformers to step the inner-array transmission voltage up to the voltage level for the submarine cable connection to the land-based system. The service platform will also function as a helipad and as a maintenance area during periods of servicing the wind park equipment.
The ESP will be a fixed template type platform consisting of a jacket frame with six driven piles to anchor the platform to the ocean floor. The platform will consist of a steel superstructure of approximately by ( by ). The platform will be placed approximately above the MLLW datum plane in of water.
The high voltage system on the ESP will include insulated switchgear for protection and will be connected to two submarine transmission cable systems. Operation will be automated and remotely controlled via the electronic supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA). Additionally, the ESP will house the hub for the SCADA link between the wind turbines and the project’s shore-based control systems.
Connecting to the Power Grid
Two submarine transmission circuits will interconnect the ESP with the existing NSTAR Electric transmission grid serving Cape Cod. Two AC circuits are necessary to provide the required electric transmission capacity from the wind park when operating at high capacity to the NSTAR Electric transmission system and to provide increased reliability and redundancy in the event of a circuit outage. Each circuit consists of two three-conductor cables. The four three-conductor cables offer several other advantages including integral fiber optic cables and increased reliability in the case of an internal fault in one cable, where more than 75 percent of the total power available could still be delivered while the faulted cable is awaiting repair.
The submarine transmission line will consist of solid dielectric AC cable specifically designed for installation in the marine environment. These types of cables do not require pressurized dielectric fluid circulation for insulating or cooling purposes. The entire cable assembly will be wound and protected by a single layer of galvanized steel wire armor and an outer sheathing of polypropylene strings. There will be no lead sheathing directly exposed to the water column. The conductors will be filled with a water-sealing compound to prevent water migration within the conductor in the event that the cable is damaged. Additionally, a swelling tape applied over the insulation screen would swell up on contact with water to provide longitudinal water sealing protection. These features, designed to limit water propagation, are common to both the and cables. The submarine transmission lines will be jet plowed below the seabed.
The submarine transmission lines will make landfall at the proposed location at the end of New Hampshire Avenue in the town of Yarmouth. From this landfall, an upland solid dielectric transmission line will be installed in an underground conduit system within existing roadways for approximately until it intersects the existing NSTAR Electric transmission line ROW at Willow Street in Yarmouth. From that point, the upland transmission line will proceed west and then south in an underground conduit system approximately 1.9 miles along the existing NSTAR Electric ROW to the Barnstable Switching Station. The interconnection with the existing NSTAR Electric transmission system will allow wind-generated renewable energy from the wind turbines to be distributed to consumers connected to the New England transmission grid, including consumers on Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The upland transmission lines will be encased in an underground concrete transmission ductbank system.
Environmental Permitting and Public Process
There has been considerable interest in Cape Wind since the project first came to light in a Boston Globe article in July 2001 and when the permitting process commenced with Cape Wind’s Environmental Notification Form filing on November 15, 2001. The permitting process involving seventeen federal, state, and local agencies (the wind turbines would be in federal waters, and portions of the electric cables would be in state waters and lands providing state and local agencies with some limited jurisdiction over the cables) would ensure both a comprehensive permitting process and multiple opportunities for public comment.
From the beginning, EMI staff members conducted an extensive public outreach program, giving over four hundred project presentations, as of early 2008, to a variety of public stakeholder groups, particularly on Cape Cod, and EMI launched a Web site for the Cape Wind Project in late 2001. Cape Wind’s Web site and presentations for stakeholder meetings both include visual simulations of the Cape Wind Project that have been prepared from several vantage points on Cape Cod and the Islands that present a realistic visual representation of what the project would look like from shore during clear weather conditions. But from the start, the project has generated its share of attention, discussion, and controversy before it has generated a single kilowatt of renewable energy.
Public Reaction
Within weeks of the Cape Wind proposal coming to light, an opposition group, “The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound,” was formed. The group also goes by the names of “Save Our Sound,” and “Nantucket Soundkeepers.” While the opposition group has advanced a variety of criticisms and concerns over the years, most news coverage has identified their concerns regarding visual aesthetics and potential impact on birds as the primary basis of opposition to the project. Fundraising records of the opposition group that were inadvertently posted on the Internet revealed that over 94 percent of the funding for the group came from large donors who were mostly seasonal residents who owned oceanfront homes overlooking Nantucket Sound. There are also a significant number of influential and year-round residents who oppose the project.
As an example of the media attention this project has received, Walter Cronkite, a Martha’s Vineyard resident, recorded a television and radio ad for the opposition group in early 2003. The ad was very critical of the project and it was run repeatedly for months on radio and on Boston network TV. Cape Wind officials were concerned that the project was not being presented fairly. Company president Jim Gordon requested a meeting with Cronkite, and they met at Cronkite’s home for several hours later that summer. In August 2003, Walter Cronkite then issued a statement to the media where he asked the opposition group to stop using his name or likeness in their activities, and he suggested that much of the information the opposition had provided him about Cape Wind was not accurate. He characterized their ongoing opposition as “premature.”
Despite some local opposition, the major environmental groups that work on energy issues have taken supportive positions on Cape Wind including The Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Conservation Law Foundation, U.S. PIRG, Union of Concerned Scientists, Clean Water Action, and many others. Organized labor has also been supportive of Cape Wind due to the job-creation aspect, including the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers (IBEW), the Maritime Trades Council, International Seafarers Union, and the Carpenters Union.
In 2003, a group of local citizens on Cape Cod and the Islands formed an organization called “Clean Power Now” that supports the Cape Wind Project and other viable renewable energy projects in the region. As of early 2008, it has a membership approaching ten thousand. Clean Power Now is an independent organization that receives no funding from the Cape Wind Project or EMI. After reviewing the project for two years, the Cape Cod Chapter of the League of Women Voters came out in support of Cape Wind, as did the Woods Hole Research Center, and the energy-buying cooperative Cape and Islands Self-Reliance.
Permitting and Political Milestones
Even before any government permitting report was issued that had examined the Cape Wind Project, a quasi-public development agency for renewable energy and economic innovation—the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC)—convened a “Cape and Islands Offshore Wind Public Outreach Initiative” comprised of six meetings over a five month period during late 2002 and early 2003 on Cape Cod. In a report that MTC issued at the end of that process, it was noted that the physical path of electricity would largely be consumed on the Cape and Islands (speakers from NSTAR and the Independent System Operator of New England had both explained that power in a grid follows the “path of least resistance” and tends to be consumed locally), that the project would result in reduced operations of fossil fuel power plants and reduced pollution emissions, and that Cape Wind would generally have a stabilizing impact on future electricity prices.
In November 2004, the lead federal permitting agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, issued a favorable 3,800 page Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) that examined every aspect of Cape Wind. The DEIS provided verification that Cape Wind provides benefits in terms of energy diversification, greater energy independence, reduced emissions of air pollutants, and significant job creation, while it found little support for the claims of project opponents that the project would harm the local economy or environment. The public comment period witnessed thousands of attendees at public hearings and thousands of written comments submitted.
In May 2005, the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board (MEFSB) approved Cape Wind’s electric interconnection application at the conclusion of a thirty-two-month review of unprecedented length that included 2,900 pages of transcripts, 923 exhibits, and 50,000 pages of documentary evidence. Important findings from the MEFSB decision included:
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The wind farm will tend to reduce market clearing prices for electricity, with savings estimated to be $25 million per year for New England customers, including $10 million annually for Massachusetts customers over the first five years;
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Air quality benefits of the wind farm are important for Massachusetts and New England; and
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A need for the renewable resources provided by the wind farm.
In August 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act that granted the Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the Department of Interior the authority to regulate and approve offshore wind energy facilities in federal waters. This had two impacts on Cape Wind. First, it removed any doubt about the authority of the federal government to approve offshore wind farms like Cape Wind—it had now been expressly authorized by the Congress and president, who also called upon the Department of Interior to approve 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy on federal lands in ten years in the Energy Policy Act. The second impact to Cape Wind was that the lead federal permitting role had been transferred from the Army Corps of Engineers to the MMS. Although MMS had been involved as a participating agency since the beginning of Cape Wind’s review, their role had now substantially changed. This was to have a significant effect on Cape Wind’s permitting schedule.
In March 2007 the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, certified Cape Wind’s Final Environmental Impact Report, which allowed the remaining state and local permitting concerning the cables to move forward toward completion. Secretary Bowles found that Cape Wind’s impact on reducing regional greenhouse gas emissions was like that of taking 175,000 cars off the road each year. Secretary Bowles stated in his decision, “Overall, the project represents a balanced and thoughtful commitment to action that will contribute to the long-term preservation and enhancement of our environment.”
In October 2007, the Cape Cod Commission issued a procedural denial on Cape Wind’s electric cables claiming they lacked sufficient time or information to render a decision. Cape Wind pointed out that the commission actually had more time (seven years) and more information about the proposed buried electric cables than any Massachusetts agency ever had about any cable proposal, and that the commission had not exercised their authority to review a similar cable project crossing Nantucket Sound. To seek remedy from the Cape Cod Commission’s decision, the Cape Wind project filed for a Certificate of Environmental Impact and Public Interest with the MEFSB in November 2007. This certificate would provide a composite approval that would encompass most of the remaining state and local permitting requirements.
On January 14, 2008, MMS issued their DEIS, more than three years after the Army Corps of Engineers had issued theirs. The MMS DEIS is nearly 2,000 pages and the MMS expects to make a permitting decision by the end of 2008. Media news accounts universally declared it a very favorable analysis for Cape Wind, finding most potentially negative impacts of the project to be “negligible”. Thus, for the fourth time in three years, a major government analysis of the Cape Wind Project has found important verifiable benefits of the project with no significant negative environmental impacts.
Larger Issues in Context
Consistent findings of government agencies have verified the benefits of the Cape Wind Project, and generally don’t support claims by opponents of the project’s negative impacts. These findings have acted to defuse some of the opposition and helped to build public support for the project. According to the most recent (as of early 2008) independent public opinion surveys of Cape Wind commissioned by the Civil Society Institute, Opinion Research Corporation found that 61 percent of Cape and Islands residents and 84 percent of Massachusetts residents support Cape Wind. While it is unrealistic to think any major energy infrastructure project will be free of opposition or controversy, the growing support for Cape Wind would be the envy of many power plant developers. There are a number of other factors indirectly related to Cape Wind in the larger context that are also leading the public to be more receptive to wind farms and other renewable energy projects.
Increasing Prices and Scarcity of Fuels
Since Cape Wind filed its application in November 2001, electricity generation and natural gas prices in New England have more than doubled, the price of oil has quadrupled, and American soldiers have been involved in a military conflict in the Middle East. Anxieties about the negative geopolitical consequences of America’s overreliance on unstable parts of the world for energy have grown as has an awareness that fossil fuel energy sources are finite and that their prices are likely to continue to rise. A driving force behind rising energy prices have been the emerging demand centers in China and India with growing economies and a growing middle class who aspire for the same comforts long enjoyed in the West.
Coal, oil, and natural gas are global commodities with prices determined by worldwide economic, political, military, environmental, and weather events. With long and tight fuel supply lines, regions like New England that produce nothing to meet their voracious demand for fossil fuels experience increased price volatility and rising prices whenever there is stress on the global supply picture, whether it’s a war in the Persian Gulf or a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
Ancillary Environmental Impacts
In 2003, residents of Cape Cod and the Massachusetts south coast were reminded of the ongoing risks faced when imported energy that is needed by local power plants is brought into our region when an oil barge struck bottom and spilled 100,000 gallons of heavy residual oil into Buzzards Bay. The destination of the oil barge was the oil burning power plant on the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich, Cape Cod. Over 450 oil-soaked birds died, shellfish beds were closed for over a year, and some premier south coast beaches were closed for the summer.
According to data from the Environmental Protection Agency and the American Lung Association, Barnstable County (Cape Cod) has had more bad air days for the years 2002 through 2007 than any other county in Massachusetts. There has been some news coverage of this on Cape Cod, pointing out to surprised residents that the air is cleaner in Boston than in Barnstable. Sources of this pollution include local and distant sources, from the transportation fleet of cars, trucks, and busses, and from the fossil fuel power plants. In the microclimate of Cape Cod in the summertime, there is a duel sea-breeze effect where wind comes down from the Cape Cod Bay to the north and up from Nantucket Sound to the south, thereby concentrating air pollutants over the landmass. There have been several local residents who have spoken of the importance of taking a step toward clean energy to not only help clean the air, but also to serve as an example to other (including upwind) communities to take similar steps.
Global Warming
Awareness of global warming as an important and relevant issue to members of the general public in their own lives shifted significantly during the years when Cape Wind first came forward with its proposal and the present day. Increasingly residents of Cape Cod and New England are thinking about how they use energy, where their energy comes from, and what the carbon footprint is from their own lifestyle. According to the U.S. Geologic Survey, Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are most at risk from worsening erosion brought on by the rising sea levels from global warming.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has stated that Cape Wind Project is the “largest single [potential] source of supply-side reductions in carbon dioxide currently proposed in the United States.” In December 2007 when the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change issued their latest report, the Chief U.N. Scientist stated: “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late…. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.” Concerns about global warming and in taking action to confront it have strengthened support for Cape Wind.
The Future of U.S. Offshore Wind
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are 900,000 megawatts of offshore wind potential in the United States—nearly enough to supply all of the electricity demand in the country—with the greatest resources located offshore the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states. While the vast bulk of this resource is not economically viable to exploit today, projects like Cape Wind in favorable wind and sea conditions can use off-the-shelf, demonstrated technology to get the United States moving in this important industry and help the nation begin to catch up to Europe, which currently has a fifteen-year lead. According to one of the nation’s leading experts in offshore wind power, James Manwell, Director of the University of Massachusetts’ Renewable Energy Laboratory:
It is quite understandable that Cape Wind proposes its project in the relatively shallow and protected waters of Nantucket Sound. . . . The possibility of eventually going further and deeper will be enhanced by the experience that will be gained with the turbines in Nantucket Sound. It should also be noted that, although there is much benefit to be had by learning from offshore wind experience in Europe, there is no substitute for experience here as well. The northeast coast of the United States is not the same as either the Baltic or the North Sea. It is prudent that the first projects be relatively close to shore, and in relatively shallow water before moving further out. Nantucket Sound is a good place to begin.
Southeast New England has all the regional ingredients to become a global leader in offshore renewable energy: strong offshore renewable energy resources, a significant project that is in the advanced permitting stage, underutilized port facilities that are needed for the staging and assembly of these projects, a skilled workforce, and a rich maritime tradition.
New economic sectors that become important to jobs creation and economic growth are seldom evenly distributed geographically—they tend to cluster. Often, the reason why one region becomes a hub for software development, biotechnology, or another technology is because that region happened to be where activity in that field started, providing the region with what economists call a “first-mover advantage.” The Cape Wind Project can be an important first step in establishing a clean energy economy in New England that will naturally attract the people with the skills, interest, and capital to further build, deploy, and enhance these technologies.
Wind energy cannot satisfy all the needs for electrical power within the United States, but it can be a viable component. More importantly, it is a technology that embodies an engineering vision that includes a return to collaboration with and dependence on nature—a symbolic return to more ancient times when harnessing the wind was an essential need for human existence. These symbols in turn can lead us to a more sustainable energy future with cleaner air, greater energy independence, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Mark Rodgers is director of communications for Cape Wind Associates. Craig Olmsted is vice president for project development at Energy Management, Inc., for the Cape Wind Project. They can be reached respectively at [email protected] and [email protected].
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