Massachusetts

Report highlights vital fact on energy: Efficiency gets cheaper the more you spend on it

A while back I did a roundup of reports. I left one out because I wanted to highlight it in its own post: Synapse Energy Economics Inc.: Costs and Benefits of Electric Utility Energy Efficiency in Massachusetts [PDF] Massachusetts recently passed the Green Communities Act, which significantly ramps up the state’s utility efficiency programs, mandating […]

A failure of leadership in the wind

This recently appeared in Wendy Williams' blog. She is coauthor of the book Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future on Nantucket Sound, now out in paperback -- a fascinating and horrifying read.

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I've been giving lots of talks about Cape Wind around the country, and I can tell you -- the American people are getting really angry. Both Democrats and Republicans are equally disgusted by what they read in our book about Cape Wind.

At this point, they're angry about a lot more than Ted Kennedy and Mitt Romney getting together behind the scenes or over dinner to plot about how to kill Cape Wind.

Atlantic Salmon restoration efforts face grim realities

Stocks of wild salmon in the North Pacific are in trouble. That's news.

What isn't news is that the spring has passed us by in Massachusetts again without returning more than a handful of wild Atlantic Salmon. The river closest to me, the Connecticut, saw just 132 salmon return, nearly all of which were captured at either of two dams and whisked away by biologists working for the Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Restoration program. The fish are bred at hatcheries so next spring the young can be released back into the river, hopefully to grow, go to sea, and return (others were tagged and released upstream of the dams to breed naturally this fall). But is it worth the effort?

Your last chance to be heard about Cape Wind

A friend once described Nantucket Sound as a body of water surrounded on three sides by money. The outcome of the six-year-long effort to use a small part of that water to house a 130-turbine, 468-megawatt wind farm -- still the largest proposed renewable-energy project in the eastern U.S. -- will help determine whether we, as a nation, are serious about confronting the climate crisis.

The federal agency in charge of the formal review of the Cape Wind project, the Minerals Management Service, is receiving public comments through Monday, April 21. It's the last opportunity for ordinary citizens to outshout the Kennedys and other plutocrats who would rather keep subjecting Cape Cod waters to oil tanker spills than sully their viewsheds with matchbox-sized spinning blades (which is how they'll appear from land).

The Cape-based citizens group Clean Power Now ("It's not the view, it's the vision") has an e-mail form you can fill out in a few seconds to register your support. If you prefer to compose your own message, use this form from the project developers, Cape Wind. That's how I beat the deadline with my comments, below.

Agency holds hearings for Massachusetts wind project, extends comment period 30 days

Heads up! The Minerals Management Service is extending the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement for Cape Wind for an additional 30 days, until April 21. Leave your loving or loathing feedback here or attend one of four hearings this week in Mass. and give your opinion in person:

• Monday, March 10, West Yarmouth
• Tuesday, March 11, Nantucket
• Wednesday, March 12, Martha's Vineyard
• Thursday, March 13, Boston

There's sure to be a "festive" atmosphere at each of these events! Plan on hearing about more guerrilla theater by Cape Wind proponents, all dressed up like Kennedys for a fine day of yachting on Nantucket Sound.

Draft EIS for Nantucket Sound wind project is positive

The Mineral Management Service's Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Cape Wind project is just out, and so far looks very positive, finding no environmental reasons to halt the project as it is envisioned.

On accepting invitations from strangers, and a harvest festival

A few years ago, I heard an actor say on a talk show that he had decided if someone invited him to a party, he was going to attend, whether he knew the person or not. When I repeated that to my friend Pagan Kennedy a few days later, she responded, “That’s great! That should […]

Coal industry insider tapped to kill Cape Wind

Those trying to stop what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm, Cape Wind, have just hired (another!) coal industry insider to lead the charge. Glenn Wattley is the new director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, and as Wendy Williams details in her blog, he's a longtime coal and coal-gasification proponent. She says that this fits with her past reporting: Big Coal is behind many anti-wind efforts.

In a news report on Wattley's new role (rich reading), a spokesman for Cape Wind said that "Wattley is another example of an Alliance CEO connected to coal and oil interests ... Is this really the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound or the alliance to protect coal and oil?" I wonder.

Are cougars coming back to the Northeast?

I just returned from a glorious week in Maine in time to see another cougar sighting reported in the local paper. Though mountain lions are listed as extinct in Massachusetts and all of the other Northeast states, this sports writer makes a habit of collecting and regularly publishing accounts like this one in his weekly outdoors column. The state's biodiversity is on the rise, with all manner of previously extirpated critters reentering its borders, from moose to bears and fishers, so it makes sense that they're here. But don't tell a state biologist that. Though the grassroots group Eastern Cougar Network has recorded 11 confirmed sightings in the east in recent years, state agencies steadfastly refuse to admit they're here.