The Great Gadfly

And then it struck me...

Perhaps there is a way to save the world from a perpetual Cape Wind debate while also saving Cape Codders money on our energy costs. We could combine an old methodology with new technology by forming a regional power and light company among the fifteen towns and buying/producing clean electricity. Perhaps this will not be easy, but the method is fairly simple:

1.   Form a public utility company with seed capital provided by the Cape's fifteen towns.

2.  Using a public bond issue the public power company would buy the Canal power plant and through private financing and government grants convert it to generate electricity using clean fuel such as natural gas, hydrogen or biofuel. The new power company would also take over existing rights-of-way for the transmission infrastructure (power lines). The present 'deregulated' electric production/supply system has allowed companies who own the transmission lines, but not the power plants, to gouge consumers without any way for the public to fight back. Producers are still heavily regulated. this means power plants lose money in a shell game that allows the line owners to profit handsomely.

3.   Separate the Cape's power distribution infrastructure from the ISO New England grid with a switchable connection remaining so that;

• Cape Cod can sell its excess power when available to the grid, reducing our own production costs.
• Cape Cod can buy and receive power from the grid if we are ever unable to satisfy our own energy demand with local production.

4.  As of 25 May (yesterday) Jim Gordon is publicly claiming (WOMR Radio interview) that his wind farm will produce 79% of Cape Cod's electricity.   As a matter of prudence the new power c0mpany would publish a request for proposals and solicit bid proposals from any operator who wants to bid for providing Cape Cod with clean power. In the case of those who offer wind power, preference would be shown for two things; cost to the consumer and any location out of sight of Cape Cod that does not interefere with avaition, navigation or commercial fishing. (Germany now has an operating deep-water 5 megawat turbine in test operation  and there is one large company manufacturing 5 megawat units that cannot keep up with the orders they are receiving.) Turbines in water up to 100' are now the new European model. If Cape Wind is able to offer the best bid, so be it. If, however, another bidder offers a better deal than Cape Wind. If Cape Wind loses the Cape Cod bid but receives the necessary permits to build and operate its wind farm it will have to pay the Cape Cod Regional Power Consortium for the right to pass its elctricty through our trasmission lines to its eventual off-Cape customers.

That is only fair, right?

If all this sounds unreasonable; the town of Hull, Massachusetts, seeems to be moving in this direction withy their existing municipal power company. Many New England towns operated municipal power plants before the era of the energy conglomerates. One of the loudest parts of the Cape Wind debate is the one dealing with Gordon's claim that Cape Cod will receive its power directly from the wind farm. Opponents of the project predictably claim that this is not true because all power generated anywhere goes into a regional grid unless there is a dedicated distribution system (town-wide, county-wide, etc.) to receive the power. A Cape Cod Power consortium will assure us that any wind farm's power output does benefit the Cape directly and first. What I am suggesting here is a way to guarantee that Cape Cod controls its power destiny while also contributing to environmental progress.

One final cavet (that's latin for cover your fanny): the Cape's potential clean power generation methods have to be affordable...they will have to pass a rigorous cost/benefit analysis.  According to what hear from Long Island this may be harder than certain people are admitting and we cannot commit Cape Codders to an economic suicide pact.