I am writing in response your editorial of April 8. I was especially struck by the headline, “Ocean wind industry arrives at the right time.”
To be sure, good jobs with benefits are always timely for Maine. We never have enough, but why now?
I recall having the good fortune, during the Baldacci administration, to attend a conference convened by the governor on the potential of generating our electricity using the wind off our shore. I recall wind maps being used to illustrate that the wind off our coast was sufficient to generate all the electricity we might ever need plus a surplus to meet a major portion of the Boston need.
Wow, I said to myself, we could be energy self-sufficient, and as a social worker in charge of a large organization responsible for a major welfare program, energy self sufficiency would be to the advantage of everyone, including our clients and maybe a better base than public assistance to feed their families from.
Well that didn’t happen. Probably because the benefits of such wind falls go to the elite of a community and that’s how social justice works and why the disparity in wealth continues to grow.
But the wind still blows as strongly and consistently from two miles off the coast as it does at 40 miles so we won’t need floating platforms any more now than we did 20 years ago. Timing is relevant.
James Tierney
Brownfield
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