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Wind farms off
the Eastern Shore?
Smith
Island off Virginia’s Eastern Shore is a hauntingly
beautiful and remote spot marked by acres of green salt
marshes and bright blue creeks. In a few years, however,
some 221 electricity-generating windmills, each at least
358 feet tall, may twirl in the ocean about three miles
off offshore.
At
least that’s the dream of Winergy LLC of Shirley,
N.Y. which plans to erect the windmills in a 45-square-mile
site off of Northampton County. It plans similar projects
in 21 other East Coast sites, modeled in part by dozens
of such wind parks off the coast of Europe.
Getting
permits for the projects from the Army Corps of Engineers,
state and local authorities could take three years,
says Bob Link, the company’s compliance officer.
Constructing the windmills could take a year, with a
total cost of about $900 million. “We have an opportunity
to set up a renewable base that cuts down oil dependency,”
says Link. “It’ll go to a utility or anybody
who wants to buy it. Will it be clean? Yes.”
The
Eastern Shore is an ideal spot because of its constant
breezes and location away from major shipping lanes.
Energy companies that need to offset the emissions from
polluting power plants will need the wind-generated
power, Link says.
Improved
technology makes wind-generated power plants possible;
there are already land-based wind farms in states including
California, Wyoming and Vermont but nothing off shore.
Dominion Virginia Power is considering building a 40-turbine
wind farm near its Mount Storm coal-fired power plant
in West Virginia, about 50 miles west of Front Royal.
The U.S. Department of Energy wants wind power to provide
5 percent of the nation’s energy by 2020. Europe
is far ahead of the U.S.; its market is growing at 40
percent a year. The first offshore windfarm was built
off the coast of Denmark in 1992.
There
is some opposition to wind-energy projects. A proposal
by another company to erect windmills near Cape Cod
drew opposition from locals who didn’t want the
view obstructed and from environmentalists who said
birds and marine life would be harmed. There’s
also little policy controlling the placement or number
of windmills. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., wrote a letter
last summer to the Secretary of the Army questioning
the project. Warner’s office didn’t respond
when asked if he would oppose the Winergy plan.
Virginia
Business - January 2003
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