Alternative Energy Delaware Ponders Windmills in Its Search for Future Power

Alternative Energy Delaware Ponders Windmills in Its Search for Future Power

May 17 - Virginian - Pilot

Two hundred towering windmills, each so tall that its blades would loom over the U.S. Capitol Dome, could be built in the Atlantic Ocean near a popular beach retreat, under a plan being considered in Delaware.

The plan, which could create the first wind "farm" in waters along the East Coast, envisions a thicket of turbines offshore of either Rehoboth Beach or Bethany Beach, Del. As the blades are spun by ocean winds, designers say, the wind farm could provide enough power every year for 130,000 homes.

The wind farm is one competitor in an unusual kind of power- plant bake-off: Delaware officials are also considering plants that would burn coal or natural gas as they seek ways to generate more electricity. A preliminary decision could be made this week.

So far, the debate over the windmills has turned on global questions about climate change and very local concerns about the impact on the ocean view. But from the beach here, the wind farm's backers insist, the giant turbines will look smaller than a boardwalk french fry.

"Toothpicks, with maybe little pinwheels on the top," said Jim Lanard, a spokesman for the company proposing the windmills, describing how they would look on the horizon more than six miles offshore. "You probably wouldn't be able to tell what they are."

Wind farms have sprouted all over the United States in the p ast decade. There are about 150, from California to the West Virginia highlands. But, so far, they have sprouted only on land.

Proposals to put turbines in the water have come less far - hung up, in some cases, by concerns that they will harm birds, disrupt shipping or become a blight on ocean vistas. One company that had planned wind farms off the Maryland and Virginia coasts, New York- based Winergy Power, says it has put those projects on hold while the federal government works on rules for issuing permits.

In Delaware, though, industry analysts say, the debate has been different. Instead of wind-farm-vs.-no-wind-farm, here the debate has been windmills, which would not produce the kinds of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, versus fossil-fuel plants, which would.

"When you say, 'Would you rather have a wind farm or would you rather have a coal plant?,' I think having the choice makes people say, 'Gee, the wind farm really is the lesser of the evils,' " said Walt Musial, a wind-energy specialist at the U.S. government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

The debate over power here began last year, after electricity prices spiked. Delaware legislators decided the answer was to produce more power, and they asked for proposals to build a plant.

One of the plans they received was for a natural-gas plant. Another proposed to burn coal, using a method that removes some of the greenhouse gases and other air pollutants.

And then there is the wind farm, which backers say could be completed by 2012. It's proposed by a New Jersey company called Bluewater Wind, which has one land-based wind farm in Montana, but has not built an offshore farm anywhere. The proposal calls for driving the turbines into the seafloor, with their poles extending up 263 feet . At the top would be three blades, each 150 feet long. When one points directly overhead, it will reach higher than the Capitol, or the Statue of Liberty's torch.

"The fuel is free," because it's only moving air, said Peter Mandelstam, Bluewater Wind's president, making his case Wednesday during a chamber of commerce breakfast in Lewes, Del.

Mandelstam also stressed that the wind farm would not contribute to climate change, which is blamed for rising sea levels in Delaware and elsewhere. At times, the appeal was less than subtle.

"A third of Delaware will be underwater by 2100," Mandelstam said, saying he was citing University of Delaware research. "And we take that very seriously."