Renewable Energy Revolution

Cape Cod Commission voting today on Cape Wind

Update, 6:43 p.m.: Commission members voted 12-0 late this afternoon against Cape Wind's application.

Word around the campfire is the Cape Cod Commission will vote this afternoon to reject Cape Wind's application to bring its electrical cables ashore.

The full commission is scheduled to meet at 3 p.m. at Barnstable District Court to vote on Cape Wind's application. A commission subcommittee recommended last month that the full commission reject the application.

A thumbs-down by the commission will likely trigger an appeal by Cape Wind to the state Energy Facilities Siting Board, which in May 2005 voted in favor of Cape Wind's application to connect to the regional grid.

 In anticipation of today's action by the commission, Cape Wind has released its response to the subcommittee's concerns and requests for additional information.

 Barbara Hill, executive director of the pro-wind farm non-profit Clean Power Now, released a statement criticizing the commission for its expected vote today.

"It is a foregone conclusion that the Cape Cod Commission will refuse to grant Cape Wind's permit for an underwater cable (Thursday)," Hill said. "It is clear that the Commission is poised to claim it is somehow lacking enough information. What is also clear is that the Commission has made a mockery of the important role it is intended to play in protecting all the people of Cape Cod."

"More than 8,000 pages of federal and state permitting related reports have been released. Yet the Cape Cod Commission's subcommittee recommendation claims it does not have enough data to make an informed decision," Hill said.

"In taking this regrettable step, the Commission is providing the people of the Cape all the evidence they need to know that the Commission has been captured by a few special interests with enough money to buy just about anything they want, including the government agency intended to protect us all."

Follow this link for a compilation of data at the commission website on Cape Wind's application.

(the photo shows the Nysted wind farm in Denmark; photo credit, windpower.rain-barrel.net)