US pursues offshore wind power

New York Times : Although the US has no offshore wind generating capacity to date, plans are progressing. Several projects in the works were presented at the annual American Wind Energy Association’s Offshore Windpower Conference held 11–13 October in Baltimore, Maryland. One of the most promising proposals came from Deepwater Wind of Providence, Rhode Island, which is buying five turbines from Siemens of Germany to build a wind farm near Block Island. Fishermen’s Energy of Cape May, New Jersey, hopes to become the first operating offshore wind venture by breaking ground off Atlantic City before the end of the year. And the Atlantic Wind Connection plans to install an undersea transmission cable that would run from southern Virginia to northern New Jersey. According to US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, who spoke at the conference, the US is one of the largest producers of land-based wind energy capacity, and offshore wind holds even greater promise; turbines in the Atlantic Ocean could produce more electricity than the nation’s entire onshore wind-generating capacity.