Cape Wind has seen several important milestones, including, most recently, Federal Aviation Administration approval and the company’s announcement that it will purchase a marina on Falmouth Harbor to serve as its operations headquarters.
These developments were covered by The Boston Globe, resulting in two letters to the editor on Aug. 27.
Frank Pychewicz (“Does project have a shutdown plan?”) asked whether there was any decommissioning requirement. The commercial lease issued by the US Department of Interior requires that Cape Wind decommission the project at the end of its commercial life and, prior to the beginning of commercial operations, that Cape Wind post a decommissioning surety bond.
Don Schaefer (“Cape Wind will have tiny impact”) was skeptical in his letter about Cape Wind reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, one conclusion from Cape Wind’s 10-year regulatory review was that it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 770,000 tons per year, which the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs likened to taking 175,000 cars off the road each year.
While we can all agree that no one clean-energy project can by itself turn around global climate change, the message from climate scientists is that every region must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Clearly for Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Wind is a big step in the right direction.