By Jim Geraghty
Monday, April 18, 2022
Wealthy progressives love wind power, as long as it is
located far away from them. Way
back in 2009:
It is hard to overstate [Senator
Ted] Kennedy’s role in delaying Cape Wind thus far. Efforts in Congress to
torpedo the project, often by stealthy legislative or regulatory means, have
always come directly or indirectly from Kennedy’s office, project backers say.
They add that Kennedy and his staff behave as if stopping their project is the
senator’s top legislative priority.
Kennedy’s staff itself has been
quick to insist that the senator’s disapproval stems from environmental and
cost-benefit objections, not a personal desire to keep the waters off the
Kennedy compound free of turbines. But the MMS report, oddly enough,
specifically noted that the project would impede the view from the home of its
most high-profile opponent: “Cape Wind will also have an adverse visual impact
on 28 historic properties including the Kennedy compound, Nantucket historic
district, Nobiska Point lighthouse, Monomoy Point lighthouse and several other
light houses and proposed or existing historic districts.”
A dozen giant wind turbines are on
track to start spinning roughly 50 miles offshore from some of the country’s
ritziest beach towns. That is unless last-ditch efforts by local residents can
stop one of the country’s first offshore wind projects.
South Fork Wind will power 70,000
homes around East Hampton, N.Y., when it starts generating electricity next
year. Construction began recently after a six-year approval process from
federal, state and local governments.
One of the few remaining snags
could be a group of residents of the exclusive hamlet of Wainscott who don’t
want the cable carrying power from the windmills to be buried under a street
that runs to the beach. Even though digging has begun, they are still waging
legal battles on several fronts that could delay construction or further
complicate the project.
…More than 200 wind and solar
projects face
local opposition, according to Columbia University’s Sabin Center for
Climate Change Law, which backs green projects through a pro bono partnership
with the law firm Arnold & Porter. That is up from roughly 165 in
September. The Sabin Center worked for a group of residents who argued in favor
of South Fork.
I was going to write, won’t someone please think
of how these wind turbines will ruin the views of some of the richest people in
the country? But the irony is that none of these average $3
million-per-home residents will even be able to see the windmills, nor the
cable carrying the electricity once the project is done. It sounds like the
builders thought of almost every possible objection and tried to pre-empt it:
“construction is planned primarily for cooler months, when many houses are
unoccupied, and the cable will be undetectable from above ground, the project’s
owners say.”
One opposition group,
Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott, warns, “foreign-owned Deepwater
Wind LLC will land its 138,000-volt electric cable on Wainscott Beach (aka
Beach Lane) and then run energized lines throughout Wainscott.”
How do these people think electricity gets anyplace now? As for that ominous
sounding “foreign-owned,” Deepwater Wind LLC is owned by the notorious
and sinister… Danish,
an alternative energy company called Ørsted.
Citizens for the Preservation of Wainscott declares, “we
are very supportive of alternative energy sources (e.g., wind, solar) and
conservation.” Just not near them.
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