Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Cape Wind: Now comes the hard part

The WSJ's Energy Roundup has a succinct overview on the Cape Wind story:
Offshore wind power in the U.S. got a big boost yesterday when a government report concluded the Cape Wind project off Nantucket Sound wouldn’t have any major environmental impact. If only it was so easy to get the wind farm up and running economically....MORE
Here's an earlier ER post (go for the video, seriously):
More Tilting at Windmills

Here's a Climateer post:
Robert Kennedy Jr., Global Warming and Wall Street
...According to Wikipedia Robert Jr.'s grandfather bought the property in 1928. Already a wealthy man Joe Kennedy had another Wall Street trick up his sleeve, a classic pump-and dump. In 1929 he and some other rascals got together to run the .com of the day, Radio Corporation of America.

What a run it was! The pool picked up $5 million in ten days. My BLS inflation calculator says that's a bit over $60 million today (although the PBS special linked below says $100 million).

When the question arose as to who should manage the pool the answer was easy. Who better than the specialist in the stock, Michael J. Meehan! PBS did a good job on their show "The Crash of 1929", even interviewing Meehan's grandson. Here are some of my links, Senate Hearings (4 page PDF), 1948 SEC chief counsel memo on the Act of '33 (5 page PDF), Colliers story on the early SEC....more

Here's a picture of the family compound.