EXTRA...

Alliance and oil companies fund anti-wind farm efforts here; Wind: Kerry challenger endorses Cape Wind; The Powerful Anti-Commodity

Documents link wind farm foes to energy firm
Filing revised as Alliance calls it a mistake

A new lobbying firm for the group opposing a wind farm off Cape Cod filed a federal document last month reporting that its work for the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound is partially funded and shaped by an international energy conglomerate.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, which has already retained two other lobbying firms, recently added BKSH & Associates, a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm that works for Oxbow. When BKSH filed a lobbying disclosure report with the US Senate Office of Public Records in April, reporting its new client, it listed Oxbow as an affiliated organization, one that contributes more than $5,000 in a quarterly period to the lobbying effort and actively participates in or supervises lobbying efforts.The disclosure represents the first documented financial connection between the group opposing the wind farm and Oxbow Corp., which mines and markets energy and commodities, including coal, natural gas, and petroleum.

The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound immediately decried the filing as a mistake, and the lobbying firm later amended it in the US Senate Office of Public Records to eliminate the reference to Oxbow.

Osterville's Bill Koch

Oxbow's founder, Osterville yachtsman William I. Koch, has been a co-chairman of the Alliance since 2005, a year that saw a flurry of congressional attempts to kill the wind farm. While Oxbow maintains that its lobbyists monitor Cape Wind because of the corporation's interest in energy and shipping, Cape Wind proponents assert that Oxbow's lobbyists have been doing far more to fight the wind farm.

"Bill Koch is using his company to significantly augment the already substantial amount of lobbying that the opposition group is doing by using his fossil fuel company to fight this wind farm," said Cape Wind communications director Mark Rodgers...  Read the rest of this Globe report by by Stephanie Ebbert here.

See the Federal filing of the electronic filing of the lobbyist disclosure including the association with Oxbow here.
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Jim Ogonowski, John Kerry's GOP challenger, endores Cape Wind

"Energy is where our money is going. I support Cape Wind. In 24 years, John Kerry can’t decide" - Jim OgonowskiStanding only feet away from Tewksbury’s Sept. 11 memorial, Republican Senate candidate Jim Ogonowski called on Tewksbury voters last Thursday to bring change to what he called a broken Washington D.C.  Coming out of a narrow 6-point loss to Democrat Niki Tsongas six months ago in a run for the 5th District seat in Congress, Ogonowski is now echoing his former platform of energy efficiency and stopping illegal immigration in his current campaign against incumbent U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

“Every place I go, people tell me John Kerry doesn’t do anything for us,” said Ogonowski, the brother of an airline pilot killed in a hijacked plane on Sept. 11, 2001. “He’s passed eight bills in his 24 years in office. He hasn’t passed a bill in nine years. If he’s not in Massachusetts and not doing his job in Washington, where is he? That’s the problem with Washington we have people who go for a lifetime. We need an overhaul down there"...

“With our deficit spending right now we are bankrupting Americans,” he said. “The budget deficit is crazy. It’s time we have a real national energy plan. If there is a border skirmish, the price of oil goes up. Energy is where our money is going. I support Cape Wind. In 24 years, John Kerry can’t decide"...  Tewsbury Advocate. 
See candidate Ogonowski's website here.
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Wind: The Powerful Anti-Commodity


In 2007, just 1.3% of all electricity consumed worldwide was generated by wind power. The global wind energy industry is continuing to grow year by year. The World Wind Energy Association [WWEA] reports that 19.7 GW of capacity was installed in 2007 - an increase of 26.6%. This came on top of the record 2006 growth, up 25.6% over 2005.Gently rustling the leaves of the trees, giving flight to a kite held by a child, violently tossing around everything in its way, wind is many things - including a green energy source.

What it isn't is a commodity. You can't bottle it, transport it, or trade it. In fact, it is essentially an anticommodity, a competitor to oil and natural gas, even a competitor, tangentially, to corn and soybeans.

Getting power from wind is hardly a new idea. Wind has been used to power grain mills and water pumps for centuries, and such mundane uses continue today. Electrical power generation by wind started way back in the 1880s and flourished in rural areas until the expanding electrical grid reached them. Times of high fossil fuel cost or low availability (such as after World War II in Europe) ensured that electrical power generation by wind was never fully abandoned...

But the size of the turbines raises yet another issue - aesthetics. While many people think a large, gently spinning wind turbine is beautiful, the residents of coastal areas seem to disagree. In Cape Cod, a proposed offshore wind farm has faced significant hurdles because of the impact on the view as well as unknown fishing implications. Because the technologies are still relatively novel, it's nearly impossible to say with certainty what's real, and what's classic not-in-my-backyard syndrome... Seeking Alpha.
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Maverick oilman Pickens puts $2B bet on wind power

Maverick oilman T. Boone Pickens has placed a $2 billion bet on wind power in just the first of a four-phase project to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas.  Pickens said the total cost of the deal will grow considerably after the initial investment in General Electric Co. turbine technology.

Pickens' Mesa Power said the Pampa Wind Project in the Texas Panhandle will eventually cover 400,000 acres and generate enough power for more than 1.3 million homes.  "We are making Pampa the wind capital of the world," Pickens said...  "It's clear that landowners and local officials understand the economic benefits that this renewable energy can bring not only to landowners who are involved with the project, but also in revitalizing an area that has struggled in recent years."

"You find an oilfield, it peaks and starts declining, and you've got to find another one to replace it," Pickens said in a statement. "With wind, there's no decline curve."  Power from the project will begin coming on line in early 2011, he said... Globe.

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Wind energy expected to grow dramatically
New Report Finds Wind Can Provide 20% of U.S. Electricity Needs by 2030

Support 500,000 jobs in the U.S., with an average of more than 150,000 workers directly employed by the wind industry.Wind power is capable of becoming a major contributor to America's electricity supply over the next three decades, according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Energy. The groundbreaking report, 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply, looks closely at one scenario for reaching 20% wind energy by 2030 and contrasts it to a scenario of no new U.S. wind power capacity... cctoday.