Onshore breeze

To generate clean energy, North Carolina will have to resolve a clash of two resources -- wind energy and scenic beauty

A year ago, the fight over wind power in North Carolina was centered on the high-country ridges of Ashe County. A rematch this year looks to be taking place on the opposite end of the state, in coastal Carteret County.

The mountains-and-coast connection is no accident. Those two regions, 300 or more miles apart, harbor the state's highest wind energy potential -- and some of the best scenery. One of the chief arguments of wind power critics is that the three-bladed electricity-generating turbines so disrupt the view that they drive away tourists and lower property values.

The Ashe County plan, to put up 25 or so tall turbines near tiny Creston, right on the Tennessee line, went nowhere. The effort generated opposition from residents, homebuilders and local government. And it ran afoul of the state's hard-won Mountain Ridge Protection Act of 1983. In July, the N.C. Utilities Commission dismissed the wind power application.

Now comes the coastal proposal, and it may stand a better chance. The Utilities Commission's Public Staff, which opposed the Ashe County project, favors granting a permit for the Carteret proposal, with conditions. The Public Staff would give the Federal Aviation Administration the final say on whether the 400-foot-plus-tall towers and turbine blades would pose an unacceptable threat to fliers. Final decisions are weeks if not months away.

The project, promoted by a local couple who own the 33-acre site, would be built in the hamlet of Bettie, about 7 miles northeast of Beaufort along U.S. 70. Local opposition has prompted calls for a countywide moratorium on tall towers -- and tall they would be, visible for quite a distance on the flat, sparsely developed terrain.

As energy projects go the couple's proposed Golden Wind Farm is a small one: the three turbines would generate 4.5 megawatts, enough to power 900 homes when the wind is blowing. That's not inconsequential but it's way below the 800 megawatt-capacity of Duke Energy's new Cliffside coal-burning unit recently approved by the state.

Still, if North Carolina is to find alternatives to Cliffside and its kin, and if it wants to clear the air and battle climate change, sooner or later it must say yes to clean-energy projects like the one proposed in Bettie. The state energy bill that legislators approved last year requires electric utilities to meet 12.5 percent of total demand with cleaner energy sources by 2020. Duke Energy and Progress Energy are seeking proposals from those who want to supply that power.

In Europe and elsewhere, wind energy is a significant and fast-growing electricity source. Denmark, the world leader, gets nearly 20 percent of its electric power from wind turbines, many located offshore (the Bettie proposal is for a land site). Visual impacts should be gauged, but is our aesthetic sense somehow more refined than the Danes'? Or, put another way, would the turbines really be so objectionable?

The project in Bettie may be too small to be economic, and even with Utilities Commission approval its prospects would be speculative. But assuming that the FAA has no objection, this type of proposal deserves consideration for a green light.