Update On CapeWind -- The Off-Shore Wind Farm Off Nantucket Island, Martha's Vineyard

Updates

December 26, 2013: Cape Wind developer sign with Siemens.
 

Original Post

I had pretty much lost track of this project. It was one of the first wind projects I followed on the blog, but after not hearing much about it, I assumed it finally got under construction ... but now a reader sends me this article --

Foster's Daily Democrat is reporting:

As it seeks investors, a project off the Massachusetts coast that aims to be the nation's first offshore wind farm must reach fast-approaching benchmarks or risk missing out on hundreds of millions in critical funding.

To qualify for a tax credit that would cover a major portion of its capital costs, Cape Wind either must begin construction by Dec. 31 or prove it's incurred tens of millions of dollars in costs by then. [The only significant cost I am aware of is the developer's travel expenses.]

Also, a $200 million investment -- the only one of a specific dollar amount Cape Wind has announced -- is conditioned on whether developers can fully finance the rest of the project by year's end.

With less than two months until the deadline, Cape Wind isn't publicly discussing financing efforts. It also has yet to start on-site construction and isn't detailing how it can qualify for the tax credit, only that it expects to.

Even if Cape Wind fails to qualify, spokesman Mark Rodgers said, "We will move this project forward, we will secure financing and we will construct the project." The 130-turbine, $2.6 billion Cape Wind project was proposed for Nantucket Sound in 2001 and touted as a large, clean energy source near a high-demand coastal area. It's been delayed by a thick bureaucracy and opponents who say the project will ruin the sound and threaten wildlife and maritime traffic.

I met the man behind this project two years ago (Mark Rodgers). The more and more I hear him speak and read the news stories, the more he seems like a modern-day Don Quixote, tilting at windmills (literally and figuratively, I guess -- I had not seen the irony until now).

I don't his background, but it seems that this project has become his life's work, and only work. He has been at it for more than a decade. Maybe he will get it done; maybe he won't. One has to give him credit for his perseverance. But if it is not built, one will always wonder if he could have accomplished something else ... like eradicate polio.

If they haven't begun construction by now, does anyone really believe he will have construction begun in the icy, windy north Atlantic in December --- if he does do anything to suggest he has started construction, it will be a sham. Maybe he will row a boat out to one of the sites, and drop in a block of cement to say he has started laying in anchorage for a wind turbine. It's hard to believe anyone has sunk 5% of the proposed cost of this project ---

But this project has been in the news for over a decade, so I doubt it will not be in the news in 2014. Like my feelings toward the Keystone XL -- it's mostly now just a fascination to see how these stories end.

The utilities that "bought" into this pretty much had their arms twisted. The deals Mark Rodgers had to make to get the utilities to buy in suggest that there's no way this project will ever make any money.

I do believe the Nantucket residents, the Martha Vineyard's folks, and the Kennedy clan all want to see this project go forward --- somewhere else. Perhaps Iowa.