Good news about the Cape Wind Project, which I talked about not too long ago in this space. In the Wall Street Journal’s energy blog this week, Keith Johnson reports that the government has concluded that the project will not have a significant, negative environmental impact and, objections of the Kennedys notwithstanding (they’re afraid the turbines will mar their compound’s view of Nantucket Sound), can move forward.
The project is not out of the woods yet, however, despite the U.S.’s big advances in wind power in recent years. According to Johnson: “The U.S. has led the world for two years installing new wind farms inland, and improved technology is slowly making onshore wind power more competitive with traditional power sources. But wind still requires a federal tax credit to compete, and the federal government’s unwillingness to ensure that subsidy for the long term has resulted in a stop-start path for wind energy in the U.S.”
At Terra Rossa, we’ve never claimed that moving the country towards cleaner, renewable sources of energy would be without cost. Quite the contrary: it’s going to take a major economic investment to develop not only the technology to harness these sources, but the infrastructure to deliver them. In the long-term, however, I think it will be worth it. Let’s hope we can find a way to get the Cape Wind Project off the ground.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 9:47 am and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Politics/Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Any renewable energy should be able to stand on its own two feet economically, without the distortion of federal subsidies. Just like the railroads, or nuclear power, or the interstate highway system.