Your Turbines are so Big…

Yesterday Massachusetts and Texas were recipient of a whole heap of grant money to test new wind turbines. This isn't part of Cape Wind at all, the grant provides funding for massive wind power blades to be tested in East Boston in Charlestown, not in Nantucket Sound. The Cape Wind project has created a bunch of flap from aristocrats griping about the potential for an oceanic wind farm to obstruct their view, this $2 million grant will provide funding to test a relatively quiet and inconspicuous facility in Charlestown that will research the durability and efficacy of different types of wind turbine blades. As the Globe reports:

The federal grant application began last fall during the administration of former governor Mitt Romney . Under the state plan, filed by a coalition including the University of Massachusetts and the quasi-public Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the technology collaborative will put up $7 million to finance the new building and issue an additional $6.2 million in loans to a new agency, the Wind Technology Test Center. The collaborative's money will be drawn from the renewable energy trust funded by Massachusetts ratepayers through their electric bills.

It sounds like a great plan to get Massachusetts on the forefront of green energy research, but the benefits to citizens of the Commonwealth and payers of electric bills remains an unclear. Having a facility that will research the use of wind technology in the Bay Sate is a great advancement towards releasing us from reliance on fossil fuels, even if the practical uses of the technology aren't yet in place. The hope is that there will be a positive outcome for the investment – we hope it might be some benefit for the deficit afflicted T and their monthly energy bill.

Image from Flickr user phault