What is on the face of it a court ruling heavily in favour of the pro-Cape Wind camp in the USA’s long running battle over the acceptability of offshore wind farms may be a double-edged sword, a prominent American judge has warned.
On 31 August the Masachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in a 4-2 ruling, upheld the power of the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board to overrule local opposition to transmission lines coming in from the planned offshore Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound.
The ruling was seen as one of the last major legal hurdles facing the controversial offshore wind turbine project. The long running campaign is also seen as the pioneer for the US offshore wind industry and key to its prospects as a major contributor to low carbon generation.
However the (outgoing) chief justice of the Masachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, judge Margaret Marshall, who was in the minority, has dismayed environmentalists with a warning that the ruling set a dangerous precedent, opening the door for future nuclear power plants and oil rigs along the state’s shoreline.
