Eastport’s Bright Future
5/18/09 | 11 comments
editorial

Eastport’s Bright Future


The recent arrival of a shipload of turbine blades at the Estes Head Cargo Terminal for Maine’s growing wind-power industry was only the beginning. Before long, loads of Maine-made blades can be swarming out of Eastport to serve the rest of the country and the whole world.

That’s the vision of Professor Habib Dagher, director of the Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center at the University of Maine. He says the U.S. market alone for the big blades is estimated at $2.5 billion a year. And they can be made in Maine and shipped out of Eastport. Groundbreaking is set for June for a plant that will design, manufacture and test the 120- to 160-foot blades made of composites of glass, carbon and resins.

Prof. Dagher and the UM center also are working on plans for an offshore wind ranch in the Gulf of Maine, where prevailing winds are strong and steady and 25 miles out from the shoreside vacationers who might otherwise complain that wind towers would spoil their views. One thousand turbines on anchored floating platforms, rising 600 feet from the ocean surface are to produce 5,000 megawatts of electricity. A prototype should be in the water by 2011.

Prof. Dagher gives those examples of how Maine’s abundant natural resources and manufacturing know-how can make the state a leader in revolutionary green-energy technology.

Still another Down East green venture is the Coast Guard’s underwater turbine that by the end of summer will be producing electricity from the Passamaquoddy Bay tides in a modest pilot project where President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to harness the tides so long ago.

The disappointment over the closing of the Domtar pulp mill in Baileyville coincided with a surge of excitement over the incoming load of turbines. The mill has been the chief source of outgoing cargo from the Eastport terminal. The final draft of the Maine Department of Transportation long-range plan seems to downgrade the port of Eastport while lauding the potential of the port of Searsport. It notes that the port of Eastport lacks a rail connection and quotes a study that concluded reestablishing that connection “would be very expensive and would not provide a suitable return on the investment.”

Such negative thinking does not deter Laurie Lachance, president of the Maine Development Foundation, known for her annual “Just Imagine” lectures about Maine’s future, and David Flannigan, former CEO of Maine Central Power Company and author of a 2005 report on Washington County’s potential.

Mr. Flannigan sees many positive Washington County attributes: fish, forest and agriculture resources, a skilled work force, a beautiful coastline and one of the busiest border crossings from Canada. Not many of the visiting Canadians stay in the county, he notes, but tourism facilities, advertising and promotion can remedy that.

Building on the new energy focus, there’s room for optimism after all.

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Comments
11 comments on this item
On 5/18/09 at 6:07 AM, jaygee wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Keep the turbine blades off of Maine's precious ridge lands, where there is only POOR wind.

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On 5/18/09 at 8:24 AM, windfuture wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

jaygee - Maine's "ridge lands" have some of the best wind - Class 7 - in the country. And "poor" wind is a relative term. With high electrical prices, as exist in New England (the highest in the country), it takes very little wind to be economically viable, for both developers and consumers.

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On 5/18/09 at 9:11 AM, rockstars wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Op Ed from the corporate point of view. what else is new? Meanwhile even the NYTimes is going under.

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On 5/18/09 at 9:13 AM, rockstars wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Stetson Mt wind farm still not online. You cannot trust your govt. and your newspapers to tell the truth. Ask the 18 families who live close to the Mars Hill wind farm.

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On 5/18/09 at 10:22 AM, rockstars wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I live near the Stetson Mt. wind farm. There were 18 year old kids from N.H. working there. My neighbor is qualified for a job First Wind is advertising on their website. He was told they were not taklng applications.

Like I say ...upthread...where are the reporters? Anybody can take dictation.

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On 5/18/09 at 10:32 AM, mccojay wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

This is so typical of the DOT. People, businesses, and local pols all applaud the use of Eastport's existing port. DOT downgrades it. Sears Island is an environmental gem that DOT seems driven to degrade and despoil since the most ecologically sensitive areas on the island are where they say they want a port. This is a project that has strong local and regional opposition to it. $100,000 dollars was given to DOT to see if they could get a private company to invest in a port that would probably not get permitted, thank heavens. Don't you wish that DOT had invested the hundred grand in furthering Eastport's port than in a whim of an idea thought up in the last century, and with last century's sensibility.

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On 5/18/09 at 1:21 PM, glenna wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

DOT has this "habit" of coming along and ruining people's property and then moving on with no sense of responsibility - and then the State of Maine decides your property has INCREASED just enough in value to justify increasing your property taxes. Give us all a break and get rid of this administration!

Good for Eastport. They have worked hard to have a chance - with no help from the Baldacci administration. Whatever Eastport can do to help the people of Washington County survive these hard economic times (with nothing but a back hand from Augusta and ports west), I say "Right on!"

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On 5/18/09 at 3:56 PM, patom1 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

The big difference between Eastport and Searsport is the RAIL ROAD. One has it the other doesn't.

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On 5/18/09 at 10:00 PM, dirigodad wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Has the environmental study been completed for this plant to make these huge blades? And what kind of resins are going to be used in their manufacture? Furthermore, why should we be making the blades to ship all over the world? Shouldn't these other states and countries be encouraged to do the same thing? I mean, think of the HUGE carbon footprint that's going to be left by the various modes of transportation used in shipping them! Doesn't everyone understand the concept of buying local anymore?

To me, this just sounds like more hot air from Big Wind.

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On 5/19/09 at 6:08 AM, BigDog wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

dirigodad is a KILLJOY.

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On 5/19/09 at 6:55 AM, jaygee wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Windfuture said: "Maine's "ridge lands" have some of the best wind - Class 7 - in the country".

Sorry bub, but this is outright wrong. See for yourself at the official Dept of Energy wind resource map.

Interior Maine has POOR wind, except for the Wester Mountains.

Wind maps: http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/maps_template.asp?stateab=me

Are you a farmer who is going to sell out his neighbors with mega noise or do you work for First Wind?

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