Here's an eye-catching quote: "I believe the age of fossil fuels is coming to end – and that the age of clean energy will follow." That's what Massachusetts Governor Deval L. Patrick told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last week. See this from the AP.
Massachusetts is home, as you probably know, to the Cape Wind project, what NRDC has characterized as the largest single GHG reduction project in the U.S. This is a project that Patrick has championed, in contrast to his predecessor, Mitt Romney. At a conference I attended last year, I heard Cape Wind's developer, Jim Gordon, say that on a good day his offshore wind farm could not only supply all the stationary power needs of Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard, but the surface transportation needs as well – if plug-in hybrids were being deployed. (I recently wrote about a great Nova program on automotive advances starring those two quintessential Boston townies, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, better known as Click and Clack.)
For a comprehensive look at what's being proposed, including advancing renewables and green jobs, go to the state's website here for a transcript of the speech and video as well.
Patrick's speech coincided with an announcement by the state's Department of Public Utilities that they'd given approval to a program that would allow a million Boston-area electricity customers the option of buying 100 percent of their power from wind. See this from the venerable Boston-based Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the designers of this innovative program.
