On January 7, 2011, Matthew L. Wald wrote an article for the NYT's Energy and Environment GREEN Blog entitled, Cape Wind is Cleared for Takeoff--Mostly. Wald's piece reports that Cape WInd received its final government permit last Friday. The online comment I posted for this piece is copied here, below:

Great News! This is a long-overdue win and I hope that Cape Wind will inspire clean energy innovation along the 27 U.S. states bordering the sea. Maria Bartiromo of CNBC commented last night on MSNBC's Hardball, "If there's one thing this county needs, it is innovation! We need a manufacturing base and we need to be exporting American-made products."

David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones Magazine, offered Bartiromo a smart solution, "The New Green Energy Economy…” Corn asserted, “…will get Americans back to work.”

Corn is right, and Washington should be paying attention! Building wind turbines, wind blades, high-efficiency solar films, wave-generated electrical generators, and the updated national grid needed to connect and deliver non-polluting electricity to homes and businesses nationwide will reenergize the U.S. economy. Better yet, the economic metrics supporting this industrial evolution are real.

University of California at Davis and Stanford University researchers, Mark A. Delucchi and Mark Z. Jacobson's November 22, 2010 Energy Policy paper reports that the cost of offshore wind power is currently about the same as coal when the environmental and human health burdens of coal are accounted for, and that by 2020-2030, the cost of offshore wind will be less than coal!

The researchers' paper (Part ll) concludes, "Evaluating the feasibility of providing all energy for all purposes everywhere in the world from wind, water, and the sun (WWS), the barriers to a 100 % conversion to WWS power worldwide are primarily social and political, not technological or even economic."

So there it is! We have empirical data supporting the economic models that will drive innovation and put Americans back to work creating a new Green Energy Industrial Economy. After all, China is already doing it and we're buying the products we should be making from them? That's just dumb. And Washington insiders and most of the rest of us know it. It's time we demand change.

So if you are a policy maker in Washington or a fat-cat "bouncer" for the dangerously outdated fossil fuel cabal, watch out! The smart guys and gals are crunching the numbers that prove your tired, monopolistic model just won't work for a country ready and able to move ahead! Change is coming and you are in our way!

Stacy Clark
Dallas and Boston

www.twitter.com/Stacy__Clark