Merriam-Webster says that a conundrum is “an intricate and difficult problem.” When it comes to questions about Cape Wind, that definition could not be more apt. And since questions about Cape Wind tend to come up among Senator Kerry’s constituents on a regular basis, it’s a conundrum worth taking a look at here.

If you’re not from Massachusetts, questions about Cape Wind might not be the first things on your mind when you stop to consider the complex questions of global warming, climate change, energy independence, and alternative renewable fuel sources. But while the core of the conundrum might be physically located in Nantucket Sound, the questions raised by the Cape Wind project have powerful implications for the entire nation as well.

The Cape Wind project is a wind farm—more specifically, an offshore wind turbine complex that would cover 24 square miles of Nantucket Sound off the coast of Cape Cod. That’s an area the size of Manhattan Island. It would consist of 130 power-generating wind turbine towers (down from the original project plans of 170 turbine towers) set into the sea bed approximately 5 miles offshore on average, spaced several hundred yards apart, with the tips of their 170-foot diameter three-bladed propellers soaring some 426 feet above sea level. (By way of reference, the top of the Statue of Liberty stands 305 feet above New York Harbor.)

This is not a small project by anyone’s definition. It would be the largest privately-owned alternative energy producing project in the nation, producing up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable electric power when winds are favorable and the turbines are operating at expected capacity. That’s a lot of power, approximately 3/4 of the Cape Cod and Islands region’s normal electrical needs, and it’s environmentally friendly power to boot. In an era when global warming is a critical issue and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is a crucial matter, that is a very attractive proposition.

Proponents of the Cape Wind project cite these environmental factors at every opportunity. They also point to the positive economic benefits of the project—up to a thousand jobs created during the construction and installation phases, with several hundred permanent jobs being involved in the ongoing operation of the wind farm operation. The Cape Wind project would produce green power for the benefit of local residents while being able to supply the overage to the rest of the New England power grid as well. As laid out by its advocates, this is a very attractive scenario for Massachusetts on many levels.

The state has taken particularly bold steps on the legislative level in recent years designed to cut back on fossil-fuel usage with its concomitant pollution and logistical problems, and to promote the use of alternative energy sources. It has a commitment to help grow local economies while advancing technical solutions to existing problems in order to create new economic opportunities for Massachusetts residents. The Commonwealth has plenty of good reasons to approve of this wind farm, and many of its residents strongly support its construction. Green power, new jobs, technological advancement—the Cape Wind project would seem to fit the bill perfectly. So where’s the conundrum, then? <!-more-> The Cape Wind project seems to be ideal on the face of it, but it’s also the subject of intense and long-standing controversy in the region. Advocates of the project have spent the last several years proclaiming what an ideal opportunity this is from environmental and economic standpoints, a perfect chance to make Massachusetts a world leader in progressive alternative energy initiatives while reducing our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. There’s no doubt that there would be many strong positives to making something like Cape Wind happen, and project proponents provide an impressive list of pluses for it finally coming to fruition. But opponents of the project have been equally adamant in pointing out the problems with putting a huge wind farm in the middle of Nantucket Sound.

They note that the Horseshoe Shoals area where the Cape Wind turbine farm would be placed is in a particularly sensitive location on annual fish and bird migratory pathways, that it’s in an area of high general aviation traffic and is quite close to a military radar installation where its turbines could cause potential interference problems, that its installation plans also include a very large transformer platform that poses serious environmental risks in case of fire or leakage. And they have serious concerns about what will happen to the wind farm’s installations when their useful life is over approximately twenty years after it begins operations.

There is dissension on both sides of the issue. Some major environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, have decided that the many benefits of the Cape Wind project outweigh its potential dangers. Others, such as Nantucket Soundkeeper, steadfastly oppose it as currently proposed. Virtually everyone agrees that such a project is an excellent idea in theory—there’s every reason to approve of generating clean renewable energy by way of wind-turbine technology, and several parts of Massachusetts lend themselves to successful applications of wind farming. The conundrum isn’t about whether to do this or not. It should be done, and Massachusetts is a good place to do it. The conundrum, though, is about whether it should be done in Horseshoe Shoals.

And it’s not just a conundrum, it’s a conundrum with implications that extend far beyond the borders of one small state. The Horseshoe Shoals location was carefully chosen because it’s a small pocket of federally-controlled offshore property outside the state-mandated regulations of Massachusetts (which would not permit the project as currently configured.) There are a host of conflicting environmental and legislative policies that impact the Cape Wind project, which are gradually being worked out by the agencies involved. But it’s a slow and complicated process. There are a number of other similar offshore wind farm initiatives that are also working their way through the approvals process around the country - including one quite nearby, in Buzzards Bay - but by dint of size, timing, and physical placement the Cape Wind project is the bellwether of them all.

And that’s why it’s so important that the process be worked out carefully when it comes to Cape Wind, because it will be the precedent for all the other projects that follow. It’s a very large proposed privately-owned installation in federal waters, where unlike offshore oil and gas wells it will not be paying any royalties to the government to offset the costs involved. (As currently projected, the approximately 900 million dollar cost of the entire project would be subsidized to the tune of nearly 800 million dollars in federal and state alternative-energy funds.) The extent of its potential environmental risks is a matter of debate among equally qualified scientific and academic groups that disagree on many aspects of their findings. There’s no real question that the Cape Wind project could have huge benefits from a clean-power standpoint, but there are real questions about whether Horseshoe Shoals in Nantucket Sound is the best place that it should be built.

And the Cape Wind questions come up in conversations with Senator Kerry on a regular basis. He’s always been a staunch environmentalist, of course, dating back to when he was one of the organizers of the very first Earth Day events (in which an unprecedented twenty million Americans stood up and said that they weren’t going to let their planet be needlessly abused anymore). Over the years he’s been a consistent force behind alternative-energy legislation, with a particularly strong commitment to wind power and solar power development. So it goes without saying that he’s firmly behind the development of viable wind-power technologies such as those proposed for the Cape Wind project. In fact, he made a specific point of voting against an amendment that would have made the project impossible from a regulatory standpoint back in 2006.

However, Senator Kerry is also well aware of the need to develop a proper process when it comes to deciding on appropriate sites for massive enterprises involving public lands such as the Cape Wind project. He knows that what happens with Cape Wind will set the precedent for dozens of other such projects in the coming decades, and that it’s critically important to set the bar high enough to make sure that this and other such projects will be sure to create more public benefit than they might produce public harm. He’s been careful not to come out with a personal yea or nay pronouncement on the Cape Wind project while it’s still working its way through the regulatory approval process, not because he’s trying to avoid taking a stand on the issue but because he believes in letting the process proceed to its appropriate conclusion. It’s a cautious stance, but a correct one. That’s why he specifically voted against an appropriations amendment that would have prohibited Cape Wind and similar offshore wind farm projects back in April of 2006.

The Cape Wind project is a conundrum, yes. And it’s a hotly debated conundrum among Massachusetts residents (and to a lesser extent among those residents of other states who are aware of the broader precedents involved here.) Senator Kerry spends a lot of time interacting with individuals both online and off, and the Cape Wind question comes up regularly in those discussions. He’s always been quite direct in stating his position, as you can see from the following remarks that he made during in an interview with the editors of the Blue Mass Group blog on June 6:

“I’m a huge advocate of wind power. I have supported incentives for it. I will be fighting personally for larger incentives,” he began. But, “I think you have to have some kind of a siting process in place that is clear, understandable, universal. You can’t just have someone plunk something down wherever the hell they want. I’ve questioned whether this is the best location. We need a rational, national siting process. It doesn’t strike me as unusual to go through the process with a fine-toothed comb. You do that for a coal fired plant, you do that for a nuclear plant. It took 10 years for Seabrook,” he added. He did say that Nantucket should have more windmills. They have one of note at present, built in 1746.

Senator Kerry also posted a blog entry about alternative energy technologies and took questions in the comments thread on bluemassgroup.com on June 13. While the topic of that thread was coal-to-liquid technology - he as, as he noted there, strongly against it - questions came up in the comment thread about the Cape Wind project and the Senator reiterated his earlier stance on the subject, especially as regards the need to get the process right with this as a critical test case:

As I’ve said before, I’m a strong advocate for wind power, I’ve voted for it, I’ve walked the walk, and it may turn out that the current siting for Cape Wind is the best place to put it. But there’s an Environmental Impact process to decide that – and we have to let the process work itself out. We rightly criticize the Bush administration for putting politics above sound science and careful study, and I just want to make sure this gets the deliberation it deserves. This is a test case for projects like this around the country, so it’s important to get the process worked out satisfactorily. Just think about it this way: if the siting ends up wrong, the opponents of wind power will have a field day for years to come. That’s not good for anyone who believes in alternative energy.

Senator Kerry also addressed the Cape Wind conundrum in a speech and Q&A session that he gave at the National Press Club earlier in the month, which we live-blogged about here on the johnkerry.com site, and he’s also gone into more details of his positions on good and bad alternative energy technologies in a diary and comments at Daily Kos on June 14, in other posts at sites like Huffington Post, and in various speeches and public appearances over the years.

The Cape Wind conundrum is indeed “an intricate and difficult problem.” There are many factors to consider and very few hard-and-fast answers at hand when one is looking at the many pros and cons involved in putting such a huge wind turbine farm out in the middle of Nantucket Sound. We encourage you to spend some time using The Googles and learning more about all the complex aspects of the Cape Wind project, but here are a few links to get you on your way to knowing more about it:

Cape Wind project developers’ official website

Wikipedia entry on Cape Wind project

Cape Cod Online’s special Cape Wind project section

Nantucket Soundkeeper’s advocacy site about Cape Wind project

Energy Central Network article on Cape Wind project

New York Times op-ed about Cape Wind project by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Greenpeace issue statement on Cape Wind project

Massachusetts Audubon Society issue statement on Cape Wind project