A proposed Wind Energy Plan for Dukes County was released for public comment yesterday by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

The document includes two fundamental options regarding possible offshore wind energy development. One would allow development in certain areas defined by the analysis; the other would hold off on short-term development within the waters of Dukes County.

Wind generation is irrelevant to energy independence: Making electricity doesn’t give us oil, asphalt, plastics or tires; only 1.1 per cent of America’s electricity is generated by petroleum. As for fossil fuel savings, adding wind into the electricity mix tends to increase fuel usage and CO2 emissions due to the inefficiencies introduced into the system.

Wind turbines get all the negative ink. Noise, vibration, flicker, interruption of beloved views. Big troublemakers, aren’t they?

Solar panels, on the other hand, are considered to be quite benign. The Nantucket Historic District Commission doesn’t like them much, and some people would rather see roofs without them, but by and large they have come to be widely accepted.

But what about when we scale them up with considerably larger installations that can make a meaningful contribution to our energy supply? Are they really so benign?

Just two weeks after it finished accepting proposals from wind power developments in waters south of the Vineyard, the federal government has more than halved the area in which it will allow wind farms.

Citing concerns from fishermen, the state and others about potential adverse impacts, particularly on fishing and migrating marine mammals, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement has reduced the size of the prospective area from 3,000 square miles to 1,300.

Compared with the other nine developers who have expressed interest in building commercial-scale wind farms across some 3,000 square miles of federal ocean south of Martha’s Vineyard, the Vineyard Power cooperative looks like a minnow.

T here are many bird-watchers on the Vineyard. They come from all walks of life from architects to zookeepers. Some are liberals, some conservatives and maybe some are even Tea Party members. They have different ideas on what the definitions of conservation, ecology and green living are. The issue of turbines for the generation of electricity has caused some discomfort among the ranks.

The stage is now set for the development of a massive swath of ocean south of the Vineyard, as the federal government pushes forward with plans to open a 1,300-square-mile plot to wind farm developers beginning 14 miles offshore.

At a press conference staged in Charlestown Friday, federal officials announced they were moving ahead with plans to open up a large area south of the Vineyard for offshore wind development.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it would begin an environmental assessment for the 1,300-square-mile area that lies about 14 miles south of the Vineyard.

“There is great potential here,” bureau director Tommy P. Beaudreau told The Boston Globe. The press conference was held at the state’s wind technology testing center in Charlestown.