Cape Wind Ready To Bring First Offshore Wind Farm 147
An anonymous reader writes "The Cape Wind Project, a wind farm of 130 turbines to be built in Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod, can finally move forward as they have been given a green light by the US Minerals Management service. Leaders from labor, civic, and environmental groups across Massachusetts and the country hailed the release of the report, as it is the final federal environmental report needed for the long delayed and much scrutinized project to finally move forward. When completed, Cape Wind will be capable of supplying up to 420 megawatts of electricity, potentially offsetting as much as a million tons of carbon emissions and saving more than 100 million gallons of oil every year. But the environment wont be the sole beneficiary of Cape Wind. It will likely be a boon to out of work Massachusetts residents, as well, given that as many as 1,000 green jobs could be brought to the Bay State in addition to a significant supply of clean, renewable energy."
Misnomer? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it just me or is "wind farm" a misnomer? I always thought of "farm" as production. "Wind farm" makes it sound like they're producing wind. Which is obviously hogwash. Producing electricity, sure, but they didn't call it an "electricity farm."
Rich democrats and their mansions... (Score:3, Interesting)
Full disclosure: I am a libertarian with pro-environmental views and a penchant for cool tech like wind power.
On one hand, the rich Kenedy's [boston.com] of the world don't want their beautiful ocean views ruined by wind mills. Bunch of arrogant, rich, hypocrites that I feel pretty much sums up the Democrats.
On the other hand, how pissed would I be if someone installed that shit in my local national/state parks?
We have to ruin all natural areas? Nothing is sacred? We whine when Bush's DOI let exploratory gas drilling in some beautiful areas [sacredland.org]....I whined too. But does wind get a free pass?
Here's a case where I actually agree with both sides. We need clean energy, and we need pristine natural areas. Build these mufuckin wind farms in farmland.
Re:Economics in one Lesson (Score:0, Interesting)
"Beware the man who has read one book"
- Anonymous
I think Stalin would disagree with you, Captain Capitalism. In fact, I think most thinking people would scoff at the idea that there is a single formula that applies to all situations, no matter what field you're talking about.
Every dollar taxed for this project is being spent, obviously, so those tax dollars which were diverted from haircuts are being put into labour and equipment (which in turn requires labour). Those labourers aren't hippies, so they'll get their hair cut... need I go on?
The only issue you can really bring up is the question of efficiency... and yes, government is notorious for lacking it. But at this scale - half a gigawatt - government is often the only player that can foot the bill. And when it's not government, it's often quasi-monopolies (eg private companies formed out of former public utilities), where the same questions exist.
It's even fairly widely accepted that government is better for this sort of utility work - the nature of the business encourages monopolies (look up 'natural monopoly'), and the government doesn't have a profit motive. So the question, in the end, becomes one of choosing inefficiency over price gouging. And, given the long and successful (at least in terms of quality-of-service) of public utilities, I'll suggest that this project is just peachy.
depends on what you mean by voluntary (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of modern business is predicated on coercion, though you're correct in that it's less coercive than actually, 100% forcing you to pay them. Usually, it's by manipulating markets so that you're limited to a choice of paying them or going entirely without the service, sometimes even forcing you to go without vaguely related services if you opt out. For example, the infamous "Microsoft tax" is an effective use of market power by Microsoft to coerce consumers into purchasing Microsoft products whether they want them or not, by requiring OEMs to bundle them with new PCs. The consumer still has the choice not to buy PCs from OEMs at all, but they don't have the choice to simply not buy the Microsoft product.
Re:Economics in one Lesson (Score:4, Interesting)
That's exactly the benefit of government funding, that private investors only want investments that provide instant, guaranteed big profits, and aren't willing to invest in long-term projects.
Another upside of government investment is that they can invest in things that benefit society as a whole, whereas private investors are only interested in investments that benefit themselves, personally. The tragedy of the commons sums up the failure of capitalism, and why socialism is so important. People working together for the benefit of all achieve more than people trying to better themselves even if it fucks over everyone.
Everyone benefits from reduced carbon emissions.
Re:Alan Walters died last week (Score:3, Interesting)
We must have radically different definitions of right wing.
Indeed, the one-dimensional political map normally used is hopelessly inadequate for even very basic purposes. May I recommend the 2D political compass? [politicalcompass.org]