Blowing Off Wind

When I was growing up, a neighbor installed solar panels on his roof. They were ugly, he was weird and the whole situation carried the aura of fanaticism. "Alternative energy" hadn't yet entered the American lexicon. Neighbors scoffed that the panels were just "a waste of money" and "pointless" (because they were notoriously inefficientin the early 80's) but the single biggest gripe was that they were lamentably "ugly." One woman went so far as to plant a new tree just to block the view from her living room window.

Community reaction in my neighborhood growing up illustrates one of the biggest impediments to broad-scale adoption of alternative energy generation these days - that while the majority of people believe the technology works, has value and support the concept of "clean power," most don't want to look at what's needed to produce it. Power production has always been something that happened in isolated areas, industrial zones or "the other side of town" and folks want and expect it to stay that way. And there’s nothing wrong with that except that the reality is that for alternative energy generation to work efficiently and to be cost effective in the way that it needs to be to be a viable alternative to traditional fossil fuels and nuclear, by and large, the means of generation needs to be in places much closer to where people live, work and play. It means people will encounter the means of production. Solar panels work best on the roofs of the buildings they're powering...but they're getting easier to disguise. Wind turbines in contrast, due to the size of the blades needed to generate meaningful power and that they need to be located where the wind blows best makes them hard to visually minimize. Because of their prominence in the landscape, they are likely to elicit strong emotions.

Wind is the battle du jour where I live and it's forcing people to consider competing emotions within themselves and the community. It's calling priorities into conflict for Joe and Jane Q Public and creating some very odd alliances and strange bedfellows. How odd? How strange? How about socially progressive intellectuals and fossil fuel companies? How about liberal cause-fronting celebrities and conservative lawmakers?

At issue is the proposed "Cape Wind Project" which seeks to erect 130 wind turbines that are 400 ft. tall (to the top of the blades) several miles off-shore in Nantucket Sound off the Cape Cod coast. Why this pristine location? It's because there's a shoal there that provides the needed anchoring and the wind conditions are ideal for power generation. The turbines would cleanly provide ¾ of the power consumed by Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Not surprisingly though, a project of this nature, in a preeminent tourist area and within view of some of the most expensive coastal real-estate in the country has drawn much fervent criticism. What is surprising...or at least unusual in the realm of environmental issues (and is quite a conundrum for many people) is that many Massachusetts residents (and a lot of seasonal ones) find themselves in uncomfortable position of having to agree with BOTH sides of the argument. It's not often that "environmentally friendly" people (I'm talking everyday people who aren't Al Gore but who recycle actively and support environmental initiatives) find themselves opposing something they know is better for the environment.

Many citizens not to mention the old guard of Massachusetts and many political and celebrity "friends of the environment" from Ted Kennedy to Walter Cronkite have come down on the side opposed to Cape Wind. NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) has gotten the better of their minds and hearts. NIMBY is powerful because it involves a choice - and forces people to make a decision about something close to home literally.

If you're for wind, you need to accept the means by which it's generated. You also need to accept that you can't just plunk a turbine any old place (read: places where people don't vacation, where poor folks live or spots that are already "ugly"). It may even mean that you might need to look at windmills on the horizon from the deck of your vacation home or where you tan.

To embrace the future, it usually means that you have to compromise. The key to compromising is being flexible. And the thing that makes being flexible possible is the willingness to consider things in other ways. In the case of Cape Wind, the choice need not be progress or beauty...if people are willing to reconsider what they regard as "beauty."

Europeans largely made peace with wind power years ago and embrace turbines as a unique and beautifully dramatic part of their landscape. You can see them on the Irish coast, in the French countryside and dotting hills in Bavaria and the Alps. They view modern turbines the way we view the old wood and fabric windmills of yore - as interesting and picturesque aspects of the landscape.

What's unfortunate is that opponents of Cape Wind are refusing to compromise with themselves to the extent that they can make peace with the technology and envision beauty in a new way...even if the turbines will be so far from shore that despite their height, they'll only apear to reach 1/2 inch above the horizon. For the vocal opposition, Nantucket Sound must always appear the way it has "naturally" - turbine free. Emotion (and nostalgia) win out over logic, practicality and adaptability...and we all miss an opportunity to take a step forward together.

I'm not criticizing the opponents of Cape Wind for taking their position - I'm just saying that if they could open their minds to see beauty in modern turbines and recognize the minimal visual intrusion this specific project would have on the vistas they know and love, they could reconcile those diametrically opposed views that place them on both sides of the argument.