For Once...
The Hidden Columnists--John Tierney Edition (17 Jan 06)

...I'm in agreement with John Tierney and his latest column, Not in the Kennedy's Backyard (full column available to Times Select subscribers), in which he takes on the Kennedy family's objections to despoiling their views in their coastal getaway of Nantucket with farms of wind turbines. Well, at least on one point:

Do not doubt the Kennedys' devotion to renewable energy. If they had their way and the policies they support became law, there would be new wind farms along the coasts and on Appalachian hilltops, Midwestern prairies and Rocky Mountain ridges - more than 100,000 turbines twirling from sea to shining sea.

Just not in the waters where the Kennedys go sailing. Their love of renewable energy does not extend to the 130 turbines proposed for Nantucket Sound. Many other environmentalists consider it one of the most promising new energy projects in America, but the Kennedys are against it.

Robert Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer, warned in an Op-Ed article that the wind farm would "damage the views from 16 historic sites," one of which happens to be the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port. He didn't specify the damage, but this is what it would amount to: if you stood in Hyannis Port, six miles from the wind farm, the turbines on the horizon would appear to be a half-inch high, about the size of a fingernail.

Senator Edward Kennedy is also opposed to the project, and his colleagues on Capitol Hill may effectively kill the project by slipping a last-minute amendment into a Coast Guard budget bill. The bill was passed earlier by both houses and is now being negotiated behind closed doors in a House-Senate conference committee.

Senator Kennedy says he has nothing to do with this maneuver and doesn't support it, but a committee source tells me that the Massachusetts delegation lobbied for the amendment, which would ban offshore wind farms within 1.5 nautical miles of shipping lanes. That's a dubious requirement, considering that European offshore wind farms already operate near much busier shipping lanes than those in Nantucket Sound.

I understand the need to keep habitats safe from industry--i.e., the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). And I wholeheartedly agree with Senator Kennedy's consistent refusal to allow oil drilling in the ANWR region for that reason. But with the era of peak oil moving steadily upon us, we need politicians with some backbone to bring alternative/renewable energy sources to the table. There will be many arguments against such projects, but we need politicans who won't wobble when faced with specious arguments like sightlines.

Now, as for the other points of the column:

To be fair, there are good arguments against the wind farm in Nantucket Sound. Robert Kennedy rightly complained that it wouldn't be feasible without hefty state and federal subsidies. But neither would the other renewable-energy projects promoted by him and his uncle.

Environmentalists have been promising for more than three decades that wind energy would be competitive if there was a "level playing field," but it survives only because the field has been tilted in its favor.

When you add up the tax breaks and other federal aid to wind farms, the subsidy per unit of energy produced is more than double the subsidy given to nuclear and fossil-fuel power plants, according to Thomas Tanton, a fellow at the Institute for Energy Research.

[...]

Besides the federal dollars, wind farms get extra help from states, particularly states like New York and California, which have ordered utilities to generate a certain percentage of their power from renewable energy. This amounts to a hidden surcharge on consumers - the kind of subsidy that economists loathe. If state officials want to direct money to the owners of wind farms, they should at least dole it out openly.

[...]

Personally, I'm agnostic on the scenic merits of a wind farm. I can understand why some people hate the sight and others don't. If you equate the turbines with environmental virtue, you may find it a lovely panorama, and you (unlike me) may even be willing to pay higher taxes and electricity bills for it.

But this should be a decision made by you and your neighbors - at the local level, not in Washington. And everyone should know exactly how much extra this virtue costs. Politicians and environmentalists shouldn't be trying to sneak 100,000 wind turbines into everyone's backyard but their own.

I disagree with that. While a lot of good can happen at the local level (and the growing coalition of cities who are turning their backs on the federal insistence to snub the Kyoto Protocal is a good example of this), we need a national energy strategy and not a piecemeal patchwork of solutions.