Also a cape wind proponent here, I got carried away with my comment below reminiscing about the "just one more year" feeling for cape wind for the past 20 years.

My wind energy professor[1] assigned everyone the task of arguing against cape wind as one of our assignments (and later, for it). Of course, we found a few valid arguments for and against, but enormous reasons for it. The professor had a despondent take on utility scale wind, even though it was environmentally + economically viable, partially from the decades of fighting against the often irrational public perception.

Example homework:

"Wind turbines will block our sunset"

> no, dune grass will block more of the sunset for you, many turbines won't even be visible (insert math)

"Wind turbines will be too loud"

> no, they're so far away from shore that even your breathing is louder (insert math)

"They won't make energy cheap enough to reduce costs"

> no, even using conservative payback plans and limited life, it still works (insert math)

"The native's sunset ritual will be ruined by the wind turbines"

>no, see above, are you serious? [Yes, this was proposed- https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/environment/article/tribes... ]

It's less about a conspiracy against renewables, you start to feel this conspiracy for pro foreign fossil fuels in the Boston area. The iconic Citgo sign, core to Boston's image [2]-> maybe The iconic Rainbow tank for liquid natural gas[3] -> maybe maybe The fact that Boston receives tanker ships of LNG from Russia[4]-> maybe maybe maybe

[1]I have a Wind Energy Certificate from my university education, but this was not my focus

[2]https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/how-century-old-citgo-...

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Swash

[4]https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/why-is-lng-coming-4500-miles-...

I don't even think it's that there's a conspiracy in favor of foreign energy. It's that the area is rich enough to indulge in stupidity. They can literally eat cake.

Because there's no actual impetus to "not suck" all sorts of stupid emotional "but the seagulls" arguments that would normally not stop anything resonate. And of course the foreign energy interests are happy to fan those stupid flames.

Maybe $300+ energy bills (also a result of short sighted let them eat cake policies) will be what finally does it.