NOT IN MY BEACHFRONT YARD

A Mighty Wind (ELINOR BURKETT, June 15, 2003, NY Times Magazine)

Wind is the world's fastest-growing energy resource, and after a decade of federal and state subsidies kick-starting the industry, creating enough power for more than a million American families in 27 states to tap into the breeze when they flick on their light switches. The country's oldest turbines have been part of the landscape on the Altamont Pass, east of San Francisco, for two decades. And Texans zooming along I-10 west to El Paso top a slight rise to the sight of a vast field of turbines stretching across the mesa. But energy providers in the Northeast, with its lack of wide open spaces, have long been consigned to dependence on oil, coal and natural gas, with only the occasional small-scale wind project.

Then Jim Gordon got restless. The president of Cape Wind, Gordon is a quixotic sort of energy executive. At the age of 22, he put aside his dream of becoming Francis Ford Coppola and instead started a small company that designed and installed heat-recovery systems for hospitals and factories. Ten years later, after a change in regulatory law opened a niche for independent power producers, he pioneered the building of natural-gas-generated electric plants in New England, a region long captive to highly polluting coal and oil.

Gordon eventually developed seven power plants throughout New England and became a very wealthy man. But with too much ''creative juice,'' as he puts it, to rest on what he had already done, he went looking for the next challenge. Wind became his fixation.

''Imagine tapping into this inexhaustible supply of energy right here in our own state, lowering the cost of electricity, decreasing pollution, reducing reliance on foreign fuel,'' Gordon said recently as he paced his company's boardroom in downtown Boston. ''We're feeding oil cartels whose whims move our economy and our armies. With wind, we can free ourselves from that.'' [...]

''The Europeans are years ahead of us because they have had a consistent national policy to support wind power,'' Gordon said. Undaunted by the federal government's ambivalence toward alternative energy, Gordon sent his engineers out to find the perfect locale for a water-based wind farm. What they needed were fairly shallow waters, protection from the Atlantic's perfect storms, isolation from main shipping channels, easy access to the electrical grid and, of course, wind -- an annual average of 18 miles per hour. The ideal spot, it turned out, is smack in the middle of Nantucket Sound, in the federal waters of Horseshoe Shoal, less than seven miles from the Kennedy compound.

Cape codders tend to be vain about their environmental sensitivities, so you would think they'd cheer the coming of alternative energy. But supporting the construction of dozens of towering turbines visible from their beaches, boats and waterfront homes is a very different thing from avoiding tern nesting grounds or attending a lecture on shoreline erosion. Even before Gordon finished his analysis of the shoal's sands, a forceful and well-connected army of opposition had formed.

Other than a disappointing resort to the David and Goliath Fallacy, a very amusing piece, including a delightful dig at the Kennedys. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 14, 2003 6:50 AM