[Dialogue] FAA takes the wind out of wind farms

[Harry Wainwright]

 <http://www.chicagotribune.com/> chicagotribune.com



http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0605310078may31,1,5900235.story?c
oll=chi-business-hed 

FAA takes the wind out of wind farms

Critics blame politics after agency suspends projects in Midwest

By Michael Hawthorne
Tribune staff reporter

May 31, 2006

The federal government has stopped work on more than a dozen wind farms
planned across the Midwest, saying research is needed on whether the giant
turbines could interfere with military radar.

But backers of wind power say the action has little to do with national
security. The real issue, they say, is a group of wealthy vacationers who
think a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts would
spoil the view at their summer homes.

Opponents of the Cape Wind project include several influential members of
Congress. Critics say their latest attempt to thwart the planting of 130
turbines in Nantucket Sound has led to a moratorium on new wind farms
hundreds of miles away in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and
South Dakota.

Federal officials declined to reveal how many stop-work orders have been
sent out. But developers said that at least 15 wind farm proposals in the
Midwest have been shut down by the Federal Aviation Administration since the
start of the year.

The list of stalled projects includes one outside Bloomington, Ill., that
would be the nation's largest source of wind energy, generating enough juice
to power 120,000 homes in the Chicago area. The developer had planned to
begin installing turbines this summer and start up the farm next year.

"This is a big, ugly political maneuver by a handful of people who are
undermining America's energy security," said Michael Vickerman, executive
director of RENEW Wisconsin, a non-profit group that promotes renewable
power.

Vickerman and others said that despite the government's recent concern about
proposed wind projects, it is allowing dozens of current wind farms to
continue to operate within sight of radar systems.

The bureaucratic entanglements come as President Bush is encouraging the use
of more wind power as a solution to the skyrocketing prices of oil and
natural gas, and for environmental problems such as global warming. During a
speech in Milwaukee three months ago, Bush said wind turbines eventually
could provide 20 percent of the nation's energy needs.

Harnessing the wind is a clean and relatively inexpensive way to generate
electricity without the troublesome byproducts of coal or nuclear power. But
the vast collections of turbines--some of which are 40 stories tall--are
derided by opponents as unreliable and unsightly.

Of the scores of projects proposed around the country, perhaps the most
controversial has been Cape Wind. If approved, it will be the first offshore
wind farm in the United States.

Most of the opposition focuses on the proposed location in a channel between
Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, the bucolic Massachusetts vacation areas
frequented by many high-profile celebrities, business executives and
politicians.

Critics of Cape Wind include members of the Kennedy family, whose summer
compound is on Cape Cod. Both U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and his
nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have said the turbines would spoil the ocean
views, threaten the local tourist economy and endanger migratory birds.

The younger Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and activist who has supported
wind power in other parts of the country, said putting a wind farm in
Nantucket Sound would be akin to placing one in the Grand Canyon or
Yellowstone National Park.

"This isn't the right location, for a number of reasons," Kennedy said.

Another opponent is U.S. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who has tried several
times to block the Cape Wind project. In a 2002 letter to the Army Corps of
Engineers, Warner included a handwritten note saying he often visits Cape
Cod, which he called a "national treasure."

But the project continued to move forward until late last year, when Warner,
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, slipped an amendment into a
military spending bill. The one-sentence congressional order directs the
Defense Department to study whether wind towers could mask the radar signals
of small aircraft.

Since then, at the Defense Department's behest, the FAA has been blocking
any new wind turbines within the scope of radar systems used by the
military.

Warner's amendment also appears to have reversed the government's position
on the Cape Wind proposal. Both the FAA and the Air Force had previously
signed off on the project, which would be located within miles of a missile
defense radar system.

"This has nothing to do with wind," said Michael Polsky, president and chief
executive officer of Invenergy, a Chicago company with projects in Illinois
and Wisconsin that have been blocked by the government. "It has everything
to do with politics."

Warner's office did not return telephone calls seeking comment. A spokesman
previously released a statement saying the Defense Department study "ensures
that Congress will possess as much information as possible on wind farms'
impact on military operations."

Opponents of the Cape Wind project say there are legitimate concerns about
wind farms interfering with radar. They point to a study by the British
Ministry of Defense that found the rotation of turbines could cause the
signal of a small aircraft to disappear temporarily from radar.

Developers solved the problem by installing new software at the radar
installation and realigning some towers, said Laurie Jodziewicz, a policy
specialist for the American Wind Energy Association, an industry trade
group. The British government later dropped its blanket opposition to
proposed wind farms.

Still, U.S. officials said they need more information before allowing
projects here to move forward.

"Until the potential effects can be quantified and possible mitigation
techniques developed, it is prudent to temporarily postpone wind turbine
construction in areas where the ability of these long-range radars that
protect our country might be compromised," said Eileen Lainez, a Defense
Department spokeswoman.

Nothing is expected to change until the department's study is completed. It
is unclear when that will happen, Lainez said.

For companies trying to develop more alternative energy sources, the sudden
change in government policy is another frustrating hurdle.

Horizon Wind Energy, the company building the proposed wind farm outside
Bloomington, already has hired experts to ensure the 243 towers spread over
50 square miles wouldn't affect historic sites, endangered species or
migratory bird flyways.

The company also has promised to arrange for subsidized cable service or
other options if the towers interfere with local television reception. And
it has vowed to repave roads after construction crews finish putting up the
towers.

Based on the experience of other wind energy companies working in the
Midwest, Horizon thought getting a federal permit would be the least of its
worries.

"We're hoping an amicable solution can be figured out in the near future,"
said Michael Skelley, Horizon's chief development officer. "The solutions
are there and they're available, but right now there's nothing we can do
about it."

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mhawthorne at tribune.com

Copyright C 2006, Chicago Tribune <http://www.chicagotribune.com/>  

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