Imagine a future in which you join a farm share program and receive, along with your in-season fruit, vegetables and flowers, cheap electricity.
A future where you receive a wider range of produce over a longer season, maybe even year-round, as greenhouses proliferate on those farms, taking advantage of that cheaper, price-stable, renewable energy.
More than 3,200 written submissions have been received in response to the draft environmental impact statement on the Cape Wind project, and the federal Minerals Management Service has been forced to extend the deadline for comment by a month so yet more can be made.
The original 60-day period for comment was to have ended on March 20, but now will run until April 21.
Cape Wind has proposed building 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. The company has said that the wind farm could generate up to 420 megawatts of power.
More than 15 years ago, Brian Braginton-Smith of West Yarmouth came forward with an idea to meld wind power and aquaculture in what he envisioned as an “ocean ranch.”
Mr. Braginton-Smith’s proposal was the seed for what became the controversial proposal by Cape Wind Associates to place 130 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal south of Cape Cod.
The visionary now has separated himself from Cape Wind, saying he is concerned about the impact such a project would have on what he sees as an environmentally fragile fishing ground.
The Martha's Vineyard Commission on Monday voted without dissent to designate an energy district critical of planning concern in the town of Aquinnah, the first such district of its kind on the Island.
The town and the commission will now begin the process of drafting special townwide regulations for Aquinnah to promote alternative energy in new construction and establish guidelines for the placement of wind turbines, solar panels and geothermal systems.
The town of Aquinnah, known for being progressive in planning, this week moved a step closer to adopting a townwide energy conservation district.
Town selectmen on Wednesday submitted a nomination to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission to designate Aquinnah as an energy district of critical planning concern (DCPC). The nomination was filed by Camille Rose, chairman of the selectmen.
Some 61 per cent of residents of Cape Cod and the Islands favor the Cape Wind project, according to a major new scientific survey of 501 residents.
So said the press release put out yesterday by the Civil Society Institute, which describes itself as a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank in Newton. The release made it look like a decisive verdict in favor of the wind power project, delivered in the court of public opinion.
