People support offshore wind power in Delaware because they understand the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the need for price stability in the face of relentlessly rising energy prices. It turns out that Delawareans are not so unusual in their views.
The consulting firm Deloite conducted national surveys of consumers and state energy commissioners that show people across the country share Delaware's views.
When asked whether they expect the cost of producing electricity to go up next year, 87 percent of commissioners said yes.
This result is hardly surprising. It's not as though you have to explain rising energy costs to folks. We're seeing it every day.
The surveys asked commissioners and consumers whether they would be willing to pay more to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.
36.3 percent of consumers would be willing to support an increase of five percent. An additional 25.4 percent would be willing to shoulder an increase of ten percent or more.
The commissioners surveyed offered similar answers when asked about the consumers they serve. They thought that 29 percent would support an increase of five percent, and that an additional 32 percent would support an increase of ten percent or more.
These results are consistent with a survey conducted last year by Jeremy Firestone and Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware: When asked to select from a variety of sources to help the state increase its energy supply, more than 90 percent of the 949 Delaware residents responding to the survey supported an offshore wind option--in which whirling wind turbines as tall as 40-story buildings would be erected off the coast to generate electricity--even if wind power were to add between 1 and 30 per month to their electric bills.
These results suggest that commissioners are fairly accurate when it comes to keeping tabs of their consumers' views. Here in Delaware, the Public Service Commission received thousands of letters and e-mails supporting wind power.
While the county has watched with fascination as the Cape Wind project struggled with a powerful and politically connected set of opponents, Delaware stepped to the front of the line in the race to build the first offshore wind power project in the U.S. Those of us who fought to make wind power a reality in Delaware have wondered when the story would catch the attention of the national media.
The New York Times Magazine tomorrow will publish an extensive article on the Delaware experience. The piece, written by Mark Svenvold, describes how Peter Mandelstam of Bluewater Wind was first drawn to Delaware by an analysis of wind power potential off the coast:
"The moment I read that paper," the wind entrepreneur Peter Mandelstam recalled, "I knew in my gut where my next wind project would be." The analysis was prepared by Amardeep Dhanju, Phil Whitaker and Sandra Burton, grad students at the University of Delaware working under Willett Kempton.
It so happened that the day Dhanju's semester-long research project was discussed, Kempton had invited several wind entrepreneurs to class. Mandelstam was the only invitee to show up in person. It was then that Mandelstam had his eureka moment.The early story of how professors Kempton and Jeremy Firestone first drew Bluewater Wind to Delaware is still not widely known, and well worth reading. The two years of struggle to bring wind power to Delaware all came about because Mandelstam accepted Kempton's invitation to discuss wind power with his class.
Jeremy wrote me this morning that the article rings true, except that it misses the story of "how citizens led the decision makers and elected officials and the open process that led to the outcome." Professors Kempton and Firestone will be on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane on WHYY, 91 FM, Monday morning at 11:00 to flesh out the story.
My name comes up briefly in the discussion of wind power economics, along with that of a certain candidate for governor who supported wind power early in the process. The juxtaposition with NRG's proposal to build a new coal power plant and the subsequent struggle with Delmarva Power are correctly described as shaping the debate.
But the story of how Delaware's activists drove the debate still has not been fully told. Last week, Barbara Hill of Clean Power Now in Massachusetts was tapped to sit on a panel at the gathering of the American Wind Energy Association right here in Wilmington. No activist from Delaware was selected to take part in the proceedings, even though we have succeeded where Massachusetts is still struggling. Much of the story of the role citizens played in bringing offshore wind power to Delaware remains to be told.
