If the Wind is so Free, Why is the Electricity so Expensive?

That is the question being asked by Wal-Mart; the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound; and Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a trade group of 6,000 Bay State employers.

Cape Wind, an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound, is expected to begin generating power by 2013 at a price to consumers that will be double the kilowatt rate currently charged to Massachusetts residents and businesses served by National Grid, the utility which will purchase the electricity from Cape Wind and deliver it to consumers.

The full scope of this problem is described by Erin Ailworth in The Boston Globe. It is a story that is relevant right now, especially since our government in Washington is in a state of complete chaos with respect to energy policy:

President Barack Obama just recently OK’d drilling offshore for oil along both coasts of the U.S., as well as in the ANWR oil  fields of Alaska. Yet, after the BP oil spill, he quickly reversed himself and stopped all deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Everyone should want renewable energy to replace fossil fuels. We’d have to be fools not to desire that outcome. But there is no quick way to get there without destabilizing the entire economy.

Even the people and officials of Louisiana who are most directly affected by the BP oil spill don’t want drilling permanently stopped in the Gulf. That industry represents over 50% of its economy.

In the Bay State, current law requires “that by 2020, Massachusetts utilities buy at least 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources.” Who can argue with the honest intent of such legislation? But, were the timing and costs fully thought through?

Audra Parker, who heads up the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, calls out “the exorbitant price” claiming "that state approval of National Grid’s proposed contract with Cape Wind ‘will be crushing to households, municipalities, school systems, and businesses trying to make ends meet.’’’

Pretty sobering.

Thanks for reading. Stay engaged.

NOTE:  Photo courtesy of Google search