Earth Equity News

Wind Power is Blowing Toward New York. Newsday, September 28, 2008. "The winds of change may be returning to New York's energy landscape. There were three signs this month that things are starting to blow in the right direction for clean and renewable energy. The optimism began with the announcement last week that the Long Island Power Authority [LIPA] and Consolidated Edison have started a joint study for an offshore wind project in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of the Rockaways. This follows a Public Service Commission ruling allowing a major Spanish firm to invest in wind plants upstate. That electricity, however, is a long way from Long Island, and that's why the appointment of Richard Kessel [former chairman of LIPA and a longtime advocate of wind power] as head of the New York Power Authority has local [Long Island] significance. Kessel's priority in his new job is building a major north-south transmission line to move cheap, alternative energy, including hydropower from Canada, from upstate to downstate. Kessel's appointment comes as a new political consensus in favor of wind power is emerging. Gov. David Paterson has eagerly endorsed it, as has Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who wants to seed the ocean waters around the city with turbines."