Cape Wind goes bi-coastal

Cape Wind and Nai Kun Wind Development to develop 1,100 mega watts of wind power

Cape Wind Associates, LLC of Yarmouth and Nai Kun Wind Development Inc. of British Columbia announced today the formation of a collaboration agreement designed to facilitate the development of two major North American offshore wind energy projects.   

Together Nai Kun and Cape Wind will comprise over 1,100 mega watts of generating capacity and are the leading offshore renewable energy development projects in North America.    

The Nai Kun project will benefit British Columbia both environmentally and economically and reduce British Columbia's and Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 800,000 tons per year.
   This is a significant contribution to climate change reduction and will help B.C. and Canada demonstrate global leadership in renewable energy technology under the Kyoto accord.
   Secondly, the project will require significant construction, operation and maintenance . It is estimated that the project will produce approximately 2,300 person-years of direct employment in B.C. during the four-year construction period and approximately forty on-going direct jobs in wind farm operation and maintenance.
   The full 700MW project will generate enough electricity to supply approximately 240,000 houses. In twelve hours one turbine would produce enough energy, on average, to supply a household for a whole year.

Offshore Wind Developers Sign Collaboration Agreement

The collaboration agreement initially provides for joint procurement of foundations, towers, turbines and blades for both projects.  In addition, inter-turbine cabling and under-sea transmission cabling will also be procured jointly.  The companies will pool skills and experience on other aspects of the projects, such as maintenance regimes, marine service vessels and best practices. 

â??We are delighted to work together with Nai Kun Wind Development, the other major offshore wind development in North America,â?� said Jim Gordon, President of Cape Wind.  â??We feel certain the two projects will compliment one another.  The joint procurement effort and the pooling of knowledge and experience should assure the lowest possible prices for both projects and accelerate this important new renewable energy source.â?�

â??Both projects are at similar stages, in terms of permits and wind studies, said Michael C. Burns, President of Nai Kun Wind Development.  â??We expect both projects would be built in roughly the same time frame and this collaboration agreement will facilitate the development and procurement processes.â?�

Greenpeace to prove global warming
Wind power is one solution

In a related development, two Minnesota adventurers are about to go to the top of the world to make a point about renewable energy and global warming.

On Wednesday, Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen will leave their homes in Grand Marais, Minn., at the start of a four-month trek that will take them from Siberia to Canada. They're taking the shortest route via the North Pole, a mere 1,200 miles.

"Not only were the glaciers no longer there, they had receded a mile inland," he told the Explorers Club gathering at its wood-paneled and book-lined headquarters on the Upper East Side

If they are successful, they likely will become the first polar trekkers to make an unassisted crossing of the Arctic Ocean in the summer. Just as important for them, however, will be the attention they hope to draw to the gradual warming of Earth's climate that most scientists believe is occurring.

By documenting the shrinking polar ice cap, they hope to convince skeptics, especially in the Bush administration, that global warming is real and that the U. S. should join other nations in making a commitment to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other man-made pollutants that scientists say are boosting temperatures worldwide.

Greenpeace is planning to tie these two explorers expedition and Greenpeace's concurrent scientific expedition on climate change in the Arctic with the climate change impacts felt by the environment and citizens on the US east coast.

Lonnie Dupre will prove the extent of global warming by kayaking across the polar ice cap from Siberia to Canada

 For most of the trip, the two men expect to be on skis, pulling their boats behind him. For that reason, the whitewater canoes have been modified with sled runners on their bottoms. When Dupre and Larsen come to open water, they'll climb into their boats and paddle.

"It has to drag very easily over the ice, but it has to be able to paddle very well too," said Larsen, 33, who struck up a conversation with Dupre at a Grand Marais bar a few years ago and was taken with his idea of making a summer polar crossing. 

Dupre, who builds log cabins in summer months, was looking for a way to dramatize the impact of global warming after having a personal epiphany during his Greenland expedition. He and a companion came to a point where a 1982 map showed two glaciers jutting out a mile into the sea.

"Not only were the glaciers no longer there, they had receded a mile inland," he told the Explorers Club gathering at its wood-paneled and book-lined headquarters on the Upper East Side.

They plan to sail their scientific vessel the Arctic Sunrise to the Cape and Islands to educate Cape and Islanders on what climate change is doing to our world and to support the Cape Wind project as vital to a regional response as well as a model for a national response, and wind power one solution to the climate change problem.

Read their report in The Chicago Tribune here.