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At a time when the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to stop the development of offshore wind, it’s heartening to hear of Vineyard Wind’s victory in the Supreme Court (Supreme Court rejects 2 challenges to Vineyard Wind, May 6).

While the fishing industry’s lobbyist, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, may have some valid concerns, Vineyard Wind has run the gauntlet of dozens of environmental permitting processes during its design and construction. Suggesting that Vineyard Wind was inadequately regulated and threatens endangered species is a disingenuous assertion coming from an industry with a record of overfishing and habitat destruction.

The participation of the Texas Public Policy Foundation further muddies the waters. The idea that an out-of-state think tank tied to the petroleum industry should get to decide that Massachusetts can’t produce its own power challenges my sense of fairness. At a time when the U.S. wants to be “energy dominant,” denying our region’s right to be energy independent is both counterproductive and unjust. Let the turbines spin.

Frederick Hewett is a resident of Cambridge.

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6 replies on “Opinion: Let the turbines spin”

  1. If you believe the Northeast region is going to be energy independent, you must be dreaming. For all the MA residents who were shocked with their gas & electric bills this past February, and March, I can’t wait to hear, and read their reactions after they see the drastic increase in the next 2 to 3 years and beyond, specially since they’ll be expecting lower rates. Green energy is unreliable, unpredictable, and the investors who have paid for the wind turbines, the labor costs for installing them, followed by maintaining, and repairing them, those last two bills will be on the low side of a 12 month average cost, but that’s what you Democrats enjoy, high prices, high taxes, and higher energy bills…. Enjoy it.

  2. Perhaps you don’t understand that for every wind turbine being hammered into the ocean floor there must be fossil fuel backup mostly in the form of natural gas or diesel generators? Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to the rising cost of electricity due to MA’s perverse policy of “electrifying everything” through the exorbitantly expensive buildout of wind and solar? Perhaps folks who live in Cambridge don’t mind or even notice these costs, but many less affluent households are becoming increasingly alarmed about what MA’s so-called “energy independence” is costing. It also does not seem that, living up in Cambridge as opposed to here on the MA South Coast, you’ve experienced the heartbreak of seeing the unprecedented increase in whales and dolphins washing ashore dead or dying since this massive offshore wind industrialization began. Pave the Boston Common and Harvard Square with solar panels and fill the Boston Harbor and your part of the Charles with wind turbines, but don’t be touting the destruction of the ocean and our coastal communities for the Healey Administration’s “energy independence” flimflam.

  3. Mr Hewett’s comments are spot on. The anti-wind bloviate has yet to show any causal connection between wind farm development and either environmental degradation or mammalian harm. Ironic that an industry that has caused more degradation and species loss is wielding these arguments. New England can ill afford disruptions to its electrical growth and independence and the nation can ill afford abandoning a cheap and steady supply of needed electricity. In spite of our current leadership, wind, solar, tidal, atomic and geothermal are all energies of the future. Coal will be phased out by market forces while fossil fuels will be diminished lynch-pins in our energy mix.

  4. Believing that “spinning wind turbines” is going to create “energy independence” pretty much exposes an astounding lack of understanding of every relevant fact having anything to do with OSW and for that matter all energy production. But don’t let facts get in your way. This issue is not a political one – to frame it as such is as disingenuous as it is uneducated.

  5. As previous articles have stated, Eversource doesn’t supply the energy, they deliver the energy, and since 60+ % of your energy costs are tied to the delivery, the cost of the power and how it’s generated won’t be the highest cost, the delivery charges will, and since Eversource is a publicly traded corporation with shareholders who invested in wind and split will expect a return on their investment, the energy delivery charges will be based on earning expectations from the share holders, and the corporations who purchased and installed the wind turbines will dictate rates with little to no regard for the rate payers.
    And for all you people complaining about their home heating and electric costs, your first calls should be to the Democrats in the legislature on Beacon Hill, and the liberal governor Maura Healy, and then keep right on voting those familiar names your parents voted for and you’ll see what you get for it, NOTHING!!!

  6. Also, remember that the cost of the renewable energy(Wind, Solar) supplying our needs doesn’t change over time, it’s always free!!! The cost provided to the distributors is fixed, based on the project cost over its lifetime. Petro-based energy costs will always fluctuate, and increase, due to market pressures and inflation.
    The distributors, on the other hand, will increase costs to the consumers due to pressure from shareholders to increase profits.

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