Offshore Wind: Turning Luxury into Energy?

off-shore wind turebine"They're building these wind farms in the Midwest fast, which is great. The problem is there's no people. Where is the energy needed? The energy is needed here on the East Coast," said Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri.

And he’s got a point. Sure, we can have acres and acres of energy producing wind farms in the Midwest, but we need to focus on the population centers- upper East coast, lower West coast, to make it happen. Though I must say Carcieri commits the classic coastal slip of somehow believing there are “no people” in the Midwest- of course there are tens of millions. And it’s not like the entire Midwest is covered in wind farms and nobody uses fossil fuels for energy anymore- quite the contrary. But we’ll let this faux pas go. Point being, the more wind power the better- and the more east coast politicians who think that way, also the better.

Next up for discussion is Cape Cod! The famous resort area is under consideration for the first home of an offshore wind farm in the United States. This should ignite two things: One, California is about to get beat in the alternative energy race by the East Coast- figure out that budget deficit and DO something, CA! Two, expect major backlash from the fishing community and the people with vacation homes there.

Though they may surprise us all and be really into it- like, now I have a summer home on the most progressive and eco-friendly island in the world. I don’t know- or they could be like, NO WAY, no windmills in my view, thank you very much.

In 2001 the Cape Wind project became the U.S.’s first large-scale proposed offshore wind farm, with a goal of 130 towers. The farm could generate 429 mW of power, enough for over 300,000 typical American homes (meaning, average power usage for a U.S. home).

Ed Kennedy doesn’t like it- bad for navigation, bad for tourism, and perhaps bad for his own home on the Cape- not pointing fingers, just saying…

While getting funding over the last year or so has been difficult with the economic situation, the future of the Cape Wind Project is buttressed by President Obama’s support of this and other alternative energy projects. His economic and energy policies are centered around projects just like it. Last year saw $17 Billion invested into new wind farms in the U.S., and wind now represents 1%+ of the U.S. energy supply. That’s major progress.

T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil billionaire, was planning to begin the largest U.S. wind farm  to date but has postponed production, blaming the credit markets. But if this guy is switching from oil to wind, that means something.

"It really wasn't surprising that it was discovered to be a Herculean task to permit and capitalize this type of transmission infrastructure," said Paul Rich, chief development officer of Deepwater Wind.Deepwater Wind is working on the project off Rhode Island. Hopefully in the future people will sift through the sands that are the debates around alternative energy and build the castle that will be energy independence.