Don’t say we weren’t warned about impact on electric rates
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com 17 October 2010
The Boston Globe, www.boston.com 17 October 2010
In “Cape Wind backers blew right by costs’’ (Page A1, Oct. 10), reporter Beth Daley suggests that the current furor over the impact of Cape Wind on electric rates has come as a surprise to backers and ratepayers. The fact that ratepayers will be required to incur huge costs in order to fund this project should come as a surprise to no one, however. Since 2004, the Beacon Hill Institute has published analyses showing that the economic costs of the project would exceed the benefits by hundreds of millions of dollars, and that the project would require commensurately large subsidies.
Daley writes, “The value of reduced greenhouse gases and of building the country’s first offshore wind farm to help chart a path away from fossil fuels is largely incalculable.’’ Wrong. Our analyses accounted for those benefits and still found the project to be economically wasteful.
As far as I know, no one has challenged our methodology – and for good reason. Not even the most optimistic accounting of its environmental benefits and its other benefits would show this project to be anything but the loser it is.
David G. Tuerck
Executive director
The Beacon Hill Institute
Boston
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/10/20/dont-say-we-werent-warned-about-impact-on-electric-rates/