Environmentalists rally in support of Cape Wind Power Project

About 300 people rallied Saturday on the Boston Common in support Cape Wind, urging National Grid to reinstate a contract to buy 50% of the energy produced by the offshore wind turbines, according to a statement from the Better Future Project, a climate advocacy group with members across the state.

The environmentalists rallying Saturday say investing in wind energy is a better alternative than investing in fossil fuel infrastructure.

National Grid and NStar terminated their power purchase agreements in January when Cape Wind failed to meet its deadline to secure financing and achieve other milestones for the project. With no one to purchase the power, the turbine project was virtually dead.

In an effort to save Cape Wind’s $2.6 billion proposal to construct 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, the Better Future Project launched a petition drive aimed at convincing Marcy Reed, president of National Grid in Massachusetts, to reinstate her company’s commitment to purchase half the power produced by the wind project.

More than 3,000 people have signed that petition and over the last week about 93,000 have signed a similar CREEDO Action petition, according to the statement.

At the rally, attendees chanted, sang and planted 130 colorful three-foot-tall pinwheels in the snow, according to the Better Future Project.

Jim Gordon, the developer of Cape Wind, spoke to the crowd. “We are not giving up; we have just begun to fight,” he said.