Energy -- Solar and Wind

As the Massachusetts Energy Bill gets hashed out in committee, the final product will reveal if consumers win or whether the wealthy will prevail in protecting their pristine views, environment be damned!

Whose side are they really on?

Will Massachusetts compete with the rest of New England and support coastal wind development?

And what of solar?

Do you think Middleboro will ever notice?


A Solar Grand Plan
By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions
By Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis

High prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S. is at war in the Middle East at least in part to protect its foreign oil interests. And as China, India and other nations rapidly increase their demand for fossil fuels, future fighting over energy looms large. In the meantime, power plants that burn coal, oil and natural gas, as well as vehicles everywhere, continue to pour millions of tons of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually, threatening the planet. Scientific American

Regulators to debate two W. Maine wind-power projects
By Glenn Adams, Associated Press Writer January 13, 2008
AUGUSTA, Maine --With Maine's spot as New England's largest generator of wind power already well-established, state regulators on Monday will consider two more projects that would produce enough clean power to keep the lights glowing and toasters cooking in more 70,000 homes.

As of now, all of the remaining five New England states have a total of 13 megawatts of installed wind power, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Noteworthy among the region's proposed projects is the 468 megawatt Cape Winds project off Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
By comparison, New York has 390 megawatts of installed wind power, California 2,376 and Texas, the nation's leader, 3,953, according to AWEA. BostonGlobe