Jim Gordon May Have an Answer to our Energy Problems

Kurker recounts the story as he sits near a sign that says, "Nantucket Sound Not For Sale." He's a scrappy and voluble former boat mechanic who purchased the rundown marina 30 years ago and built it into a 180-slip complex for smallcraft to megayachts. Across the harbor, ferries glide along the channel on their way to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and the shores are lined with large beachfront homes. A yachtsman from Nantucket stops to chat and soon both are blowing a gale about Gordon and his wind farm.

"He cloaks this project in a green blanket, pretending it's all about doing good for the environment," fumes Kurker. "And that's baloney."

Shortly after the barge episode, Kurker founded the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the battle was joined. Unlike a typical grassroots organization, the Alliance had the funds to turn itself into a powerful special interest group with lawyers, flaks, and Washington lobbyists. The Alliance claims more than 4,000 donors -- some of whom are very generous. A consultant accidentally posted a copy of an alliance fundraising guide on the Web. According to the document, the Alliance raised $8.5 million between 2004 and 2005 -- 94 percent from 93 major donors who each contributed at least $20,000. "If it is a token gift of $5,000," the guide instructed, "you should delay acceptance."

Gordon had faced opposition before but nothing like this. Opponents sent out mass mailings and took out newspaper advertisements condemning his project. The local paper, the Cape Cod Times editorialized against the project repeatedly and vehemently. The Cape's two ferry lines and the local Chamber of Commerce opposed it. Author David McCullough, the well-known voice of many PBS documentaries, and retired newscaster Walter Cronkite recorded radio ads against Cape Wind. A pantheon of elected leaders lined up against Cape Wind, including Governor Mitt Romney, Attorney General Tom Reilly, local congressman William Delahunt, and Senator Ted Kennedy, whose family compound is located about seven miles from the site. Instead of kayaking with Gordon, RFK Jr. paddled him in the op-ed pages of the New York Times for trying to privatize the commons.

Opponents feared the towers would imperil navigation and aviation, disrupt fishing, chase away tourists and destroy their views (the towers would be less than half an inch on the horizon when seen from shore). They objected to Gordon trying to lock up the site without a competitive bidding process. They compared Nantucket Sound to national treasures like Yellowstone and Yosemite. "If this is the only good site for wind energy, and he's looked up and down the east coast, what does that say about the future of offshore wind in New England and the U.S. East Coast?" asks Charles Vinick, president and CEO of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. "If there is a great future, there can't be one site."

Gordon, the old salesman, tried to get his foot in the door at some of the seaside estates. He paid $1,000 to attend a fundraiser at the Kennedy Compound, he says, but his check was returned. Once, Gordon called on Bill Koch, a businessman and yachtsman who owns a house on Nantucket Sound. Koch is founder and chairman of the Oxbow Group, a conglomerate of more than two dozen companies with nearly $1 billion in annual sales of coal, natural gas, petroleum coke, and power generation. Koch also knows something about wind: He is a sailor, and in 1992 he won the America's cup. "He was such as advocate I thought he was an evangelist," Koch recalls of his meeting with Gordon. "I even said to him, 'Now Jim, cut this B.S. out…Well, he kept going on. I finally said, 'Jim, just shut up, let's talk about the economics.'" Koch later became one of the most prominent opponents and co-chair of the Alliance. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, he branded Cape Wind "nonsensical, a giant boondoggle for the benefit of one developer."

Back in his office, Gordon stands at the map and runs his finger along the coast. He traces his opposition to an oligarchy of seaside barons who are bankrolling the opposition. "They love renewable energy as long as it's in someone else's backyard," he says. "This is a very small group of opposition. They're very wealthy and very politically influential. A lot of these people are so successful, they have a sense of dominion."

But he must give them this: They have slowed him down. The Alliance has filed two lawsuits, and although Cape Wind has prevailed, the controversy has slowed the permitting process and substantially increased his costs. Under the most optimistic scenario, Gordon will get a permit no earlier than late 2008 -- three years after his original target to produce power. The cost of the project has risen from $700 million to a figure that Gordon will only describe as "north of one billion."

"If it goes well, it will make it possible for others to follow," says Ted Roosevelt, great grandson of the conservationist president, who owns a house on Martha's Vineyard. "If it gets killed, that's going to send a signal that offshore wind is very difficult and it will retard the development of these kinds of projects for a decade, if not a generation."