Susan Labandibar – Activist CEO

There are dueling offshore energy stories in the news this week. The first is about an oil platform exploding and sinking in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers are dead and every day, 5,000 barrels of light sweet crude are pouring into the ocean. The second is the approval of the Cape Wind project, which may start providing 420 megawatts of emissions-free energy as soon as 2012.

These stories come on the heels of a deadly coal mine accident and highlight the contrasting visions of America’s energy future. Opponents of Cape Wind (including the late Senator Kennedy) claim that the view of the 130 proposed windmills could harm tourism and that the project might have unforeseen environmental impacts. Meanwhile, West Virginia and Louisiana struggle with environmental impacts that they know all too well.

Opponents of renewable energy point out that it is not yet as cost effective as other more conventional sources. Where these calculations fall short is in accounting for lasting damage to ecosystems caused by disasters like the recent oil spill. It has been more than twenty years since the Exxon Valdez breached its hull off the coast of Alaska, and fishing there has still not recovered. Unfortunately, modern economics does not yet have an accepted method for valuing ecosystem services (instead we assign value to the impact on industries that rely on those ecosystems). Until we reach an agreement on how to account for our dwindling natural wealth, we are likely to go on treating it as if it has no value.

The opposition to Cape Wind goes beyond not-in-my-back-yard sentiment. There are legitimate concerns about ecological impacts of the project and cultural objections from Native Americans. For them, an unobstructed view of the sunrise is one more part of their culture threatened by our exploitation of natural resources. Still, if given a choice between looking at windmills, looking at a barren mountaintop removal site, or looking at the inferno of an oil slick set ablaze to keep it off their shores, I think I know what most Cape Cod residents would pick.

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