Will we see Wind Power coming to Western Massachusetts?

Like Cape Cod sound; this proposal will be met with resistance; even environmentalists will take a stand against something like this. But like Cape Cod sound; their arguments will be honed down to simply an aesthetic criteria which won't hold much power given clean energy pressures.

I think Joe from Facilities is going; I hope he comes back with some fireworks.

I hope to come back to this post and thrash it out: the future of Western Mass and it's demand of clean energy starts with this proposal and town meeting.

Once upon a time, wood was almost a "free" utility. The material was free; the downside was labor - the costs "expended" to harvest it for fuel and shelter. Electricity; one of today's essential utilities is at the frontier and crossroads of dramatic cost reductions as we as a community become untethered to fossil fuels. Electrical power costs could go down as we reduce our carbon foot print.

This issue must be viewed in the context of transformational economic epics or as quantum changes in technological expansion. If man can devote his labors to food production; and not worry about the costs of utilities (energy) then truly; the age of leisure and recreation is upon him.

One way to think of today's trouble economic world is this: it is vital for the community to break from the expansion and re-think it's goals; the downtime and recession provides the necessary pressure to consider the essentials vs. non-essentials and pause to work out the long term vision for the communities of Western Mass. Can the bucolic school systems of Western Mass be the primary economic drivers of the contemporary commercial cultures? Are we gravitating to the Grecian "State" again; that fleeting period of enlightenment where knowledge, wisdom and aspiration of the heavens can guide us going forward?

What happens as we decentralize, simplify, look backward before leaping forward? The expansionary model of economic development: housing, followed by malls, and consumption needs a rest. Is it time to transcend the aggregation model and re-think the costs of living?