...However, for all the well-funded opposition, Cape Wind has plenty of local and national support. Leading environmental organisations including Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defence Council and the Sierra Club want it to go ahead. Locals hope the project will reduce rising electricity bills and help clean up the air they breathe.

Cape Cod has some of the worst air quality in Massachusetts. The fumes from oil and coal-fired electricity generating plants are trapped by the sea breezes and hover over the cape for days on end.
Note: Click here to read this article in The Independent (UK daily)

The price for a kilowatt hour of electricity jumped 14.5 percent Tuesday from 11.1 cents to 12.7 cents for Cape Light Compact customers.

"Just this year alone, oil went up 42 percent and natural gas went up 56 percent," said Compact senior power supply planner Joseph Soares. "Those are the fuels that drive electricity prices in New England."
Note: Click here to read this article in the Cape Cod Times

Op Ed in the Boston Globe by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick:

EVERYWHERE WE turn, Massachusetts residents are feeling the sting of high energy costs. With crude oil more than $140 a barrel and gasoline more than $4 a gallon, the price of fossil fuels strains household budgets and the Massachusetts economy as a whole. Oil and gas are taking a toll on the environment, too. Greenhouse gases emitted from these fuel sources are disrupting the climate and endangering the Massachusetts coastline.

By choice and necessity, the fossil fuel age is coming to an end. Think of this as a shift in an "age," not merely a shift in resource. The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone, but because humankind had a better idea. Clean energy is today's better idea - better for people's pocketbooks, the economy, and the planet. And in this clean energy age, Massachusetts is poised to lead.

...We are pursuing this vision in a variety of ways, and on a variety of fronts. My administration brought the seven-year-long environmental review process for Cape Wind to an end, allowing the project to file for its permits and move toward construction. I look forward to the day when those wind turbines in the waters off Cape Cod - the first offshore wind farm in the country - stand as a testament to our commitment to renewable energy.

Note: Click here to read Governor Patrick's Op Ed in the Boston Globe

BUSINESS WEEK:  Wind farms are springing up in Midwestern fields, along Appalachian ridgelines, and even in Texas backyards. They're everywhere, it seems, except in the windy coastal waters that lap at some of America's largest, most power-hungry cities. That's partly because the first large-scale effort to harness sea breezes in the U.S. hit resistance from an army led by the rich and famous, waging a not-on-my-beach campaign. For almost eight years the critics have stalled the project, called Cape Wind, which aims to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound about five miles south of Cape Cod. Yet surprisingly, Cape Wind has largely defeated the big guns. In a few months it may get authorization to begin construction. Meanwhile, a string of other offshore wind projects is starting up on the Eastern Seaboard, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Great Lakes.

Much of the credit—or blame—for this activity goes to Jim Gordon, the man who launched Cape Wind in 2000. His goal is to provide up to 75% of the electric power on Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard by tapping the region's primary renewable resource: strong and steady offshore breezes. He has methodically responded to every objection from Cape Cod property owners and sometime-vacationers...

Note: Click here to read this article in Business Week

Barnstable Superior Court Judge Robert Kane on Friday, in a 37-page ruling, allowed motions by Cape Wind and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to dismiss four of five counts that had been filed by the opposition group and by the Town of Barnstable.

Cape Wind Associates won another round in court this week when Superior Court Justice Robert J. Kane ruled the state's environmental review of the proposed wind farm was legally correct.
Note: Click here to read article in the Boston Globe

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Federal regulators on Thursday warned that the U.S. appears to be heading into a period of "significantly higher power prices that will last for years."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said that higher fuel costs and rising costs for the construction of new power plants are the two main forces that will drive prices higher.

"We're looking at continued upward pressure on electricity prices," said FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher.
Note: Click here to read this article in SmartMoney

Texas oil baron T. Boone Pickens told Congress that the country should ramp up a plan to use domestic natural gas and wind power to reduce the nation's "addiction" to foreign oil.
Note: Click here to read this article in the Houston Business Journal

The United States can increase its use of wind power over the next two decades to supply twenty percent of the nation’s electricity without any technological breakthroughs, according to a first-of-its-kind report issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) last month.

The report entitled, 20% Wind Energy by 2030, forecasts that target can be met with 300 gigawatts of installed wind power in the United States assuming that electric demand also increases by 39 percent.

According to the report, the DOE expects coastal states to harness 50,000 megawatts of offshore wind in shallow water depths of less than 100 feet. The report notes for some coastal states (like Massachusetts) shallow water offshore wind can provide 100 percent of the electricity supply.

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government opened a major new phase on Wednesday in its drive for renewable energy, calling for bids to build up to 25 gigawatts of offshore wind turbines, triple the amount already in the pipeline, by 2020.
Note: Click here to read this Reuters article