Communities Blow Back at Wind Farm Development

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By Rebecca Kessler
July 18th, 2011

Wind turbines on Wolfe Island, just offshore of Cape Vincent, NY. Credit: Rebecca Kessler.
The view across the St. Lawrence River from Cape Vincent, New York, takes in dozens of white wind turbines towering above the green and otherwise bucolic profile of Wolfe Island, Ontario, less than two miles away. Eighty-six 415-foot-tall windmills began spinning there in 2009, making it one of the Great Lakes’ first big wind farms. That’s just the kind of scene some in Cape Vincent are trying to bring to their home shores — even as others work fervently to prevent it.

The situation in Cape Vincent demonstrates some of the potential roadblocks to expanding wind power, which is a growing source of renewable energy in the United States and around the world. According to a recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global electric generation from wind power grew by 30 percent between 2008 and 2009. And the U.S. Department of Energy found that supplying 20 percent of domestic electricity from wind by 2030 could cut annual US electricity sector emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by 825 million metric tons, offsetting the need to construct some new coal-fired power plants.