Letter to the Editor

Tap ocean winds for energy

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The port of Nysted in Denmark, dating from the Middle Ages, still sees a lot of boat traffic but now primarily draws tourists. A meandering shoreline bike path provides idyllic views of white ocean foam and blue skies, cows grazing green pastures, hillsides covered in flowers.

This historical and natural beauty is uninterrupted except for one ultramodern counterpoint. About six miles out to sea stands a checkerboard array of 363-foot wind turbines, eight rows of nine machines each.

Local people point to this seascape with pride. Danes love their historical sites and natural landscapes, but they also love energy independence and freedom from fossil fuels.

They see offshore wind as an important tool in achieving these goals, because winds at sea are stronger and steadier than winds on land.

Combining land-based and offshore wind technology has brought tiny Denmark tremendous results. During one storm last winter, the country produced all the power it needed from its wind turbines -- plus enough to export. With 11 turbines on land and 10 offshore, the 1,400 residents of the Danish island Samso, who once imported fossil-fuel power from the mainland, now regularly export wind power.

The Danes plan to generate at least 4,000 megawatts of offshore wind power -- 40 percent of the nation's electricity consumption -- by 2030.

While Denmark moves ahead with offshore technology, the United States has yet to take the first tiny step.

This is not for want of resource. Studies sponsored by the Department of Energy, Rutgers University, the University of Delaware, Stanford University and many other institutions have found that wind off the mid- and north-Atlantic Coast could easily provide enough power to meet the needs of all the coastal North-east.

"From Massachusetts through North Carolina, we calculate there's 330,000 megawatts of power in offshore winds, while the entire amount of electricity needed by that whole set of states is 73,000 megawatts," says University of Delaware scientist Willett Kempton.

Figures like these provide a perspective on the amount of fossil fuel consumption that could be avoided. Nevertheless, the United States has not one offshore turbine.

A proposed 130-turbine offshore wind project in Massachusetts called Cape Wind has sat in regulatory limbo for more than six years, in large part because people like Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Sen. John Warner of Virginia and GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney do not want turbines built near the homes of some nationally powerful families.

Congress should follow the Danish government's lead and encourage offshore wind power. We need to encourage American investment in today's technology and research to improve it.

Wind power in the United States now enjoys a tax incentive of roughly 2 cents per kilowatt hour. This tax credit lasts through the first 10 years of a project's life.

This is encouragement indeed. But there's a hitch: Since 1992, Congress has enacted this legislation only for two-year time periods. So if a developer doesn't get his project up and running by the end of the current two-year period, he would not get the credit if Congress fails to renew the legislation.

This short time period creates unnecessary financial risk and considerable instability within the industry. It discourages long-term planning and instead causes investors to seek out only "low-hanging fruit" -- projects that can be developed and built quickly.

Instead, we need renewal periods of at least five years. This would send a message to investors, entrepreneurs and the nation that our policy-makers are serious about energy independence.

The United States has had land-based wind power for many years. Let's now tap the rich wind power at sea.

-- Wendy Williams wrote "Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics and the Battle for Our Energy Future" with Robert Whitcomb Jr. of the Providence Journal, and visited Denmark to investigate the economics of offshore wind power. She wrote this comment for the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.

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