DPU should vet it closely, but Cape Wind still makes sense :: Cape Wind :: America's First Offshore Wind Farm on Nantucket Sound

...Now that gas prices are down, the high capital costs of anchoring huge turbine towers in Nantucket Sound make Cape Wind less of a bargain — in the short term. In the longer term, consumers will get a power source with zero fuel costs, a welcome hedge against the unpredictable fluctuations of natural gas prices. And as high as fossil-fuel prices can go, they still don’t reflect the health and environmental costs of their production or their emissions, a lesson the country just re-learned with a vengeance in the Gulf of Mexico.

Critics of the contract between National Grid and Cape Wind frequently blast it as a no-bid deal. In fact, National Grid did consider alternative ways to meet its state-mandated requirement to derive more of its power from renewable sources. But it chose Cape Wind over competing smaller projects, including land-based wind, solar, and biomass.

The Legislature has mandated greater use of renewables both to reduce the Commonwealth’s carbon footprint and to give a boost to state and regional clean-energy companies. Last week’s announcement that a wind-turbine blade maker will open a plant in Fall River illustrates the potential. With energy policy in the country as a whole paralyzed by congressional stalemate, Massachusetts at least has a chance to make itself a leader in clean-energy industries. That includes high-tech batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, cellulosic ethanol, and — since the Northeast is the Saudi Arabia of wind — wind energy.

Calculating that dividend from the National Grid/Cape Wind deal might not be within the purview of the DPU, but it is a major reason why the project continues to deserve the Commonwealth’s support.