Boston MA offers tourist boat cruise to see renewable energy projects

A clean energy cruise patrol; Tour highlights wind power

By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent | July 15, 2007

The annual Clean Energy Cruise is riding a fresh wind of interest in renewable energy sources.

Drawing environmentalists, consumers who want to promote alternatives to fossil fuels, and community leaders thinking about wind power in their own towns, the charter boat cruise to the Hull wind turbine at the Hull Gut is filling up fast.

The cruise will leave Thursday morning and take passengers past clean energy projects in the Boston Harbor neighborhood, including a solar photovoltaic (solar panel) project at the Boston Coast Guard station, a similar solar panel installation at the Spectacle Island recreational center, the wind turbine owned by electrical workers Local 103 by the Dorchester gas tank , and a methane gas producing biomass project on Deer Island in Winthrop, before arriving at Hull.

Passengers will disembark for an up-close look at the turbine known as Hull 1, and John MacLeod of the Hull Light Department will speak on the town's plans to expand on its successes.

The growth in the number of folks looking to support wind power is "stunning," said Larry Chretien, head of the nonprofit Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance, which organizes the cruise.

"It's just what the doctor ordered in terms of raising people's awareness and excitement over wind power," Chretien said.

For industry pros, it's a chance to exchange information and network. And it's an opportunity for representatives of public and private organizations interested in the clean energy movement -- such as Shannon O'Brien, the former gubernatorial candidate who now heads the Girl Scouts Patriot Trails Council.

The council's eight-person staff, and possibly the boss herself (depending on scheduling), will take the cruise to learn how to assimilate wind power and clean energy to programs involving Patriot Trails' 23,000 girls. Her organization is developing new science patch programs for Girl Scouts with the goal of "understanding the whole energy issue and then getting them involved in practical ways to support conservation and the use of clean energy sources," O'Brien said.

The cruise is also an opportunity for the state agency in charge of promoting clean energy to make a pitch for the cause.

"I would encourage anyone who's skeptical about wind power or concerned about the noise or the visibility impacts to come visit the turbine," said Jon Abe, project manager for Mass. Technology Collaborative's Large Onsite Renewables Initiative, which awards grants for feasibility studies and for design and construction.

Abe, who will be on the cruise, pointed to renewable energy initiatives such as Brockton's Brightfields, a solar installation built on a brownfields site, and a Milton Boy Scout troop's feasibility study for a wind power turbine on a scout camp site.

Other regional initiatives include wind measurement towers in Quincy and Hanover, some small wind and solar power projects in Plymouth, and a solar energy project by Extrusion Technology in Randolph.

The Technology Collaborative's Alyssa Rosen will also be on board to explain Clean Energy Choice, a program that rewards consumers' cash contributions to renewable energy by giving grants to their city or town.

Mass. Energy, which purchases energy from renewable sources for the 10,000 households it serves, seeks to encourage projects similar to the Hull I wind turbine, a 660-kilowatt turbine built six years ago, and Hull 2, the larger 1.8 megawatt turbine built last year.

Hull's municipal light department is considering building the nation's first offshore wind power project, to consist of four turbines in state administered coastal waters, Chretien said.

Hull is still way ahead of its neighbors in wind power generation, and no similar turbines are scheduled to be built in the state this year. Said Chretien, "We're not seeing them go up fast enough."