offshore wind energy

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pledged on Wednesday to make a final decision on the controversial Cape Wind project on Nantucket Sound in April, while some powerful opponents said they will keep fighting until the wind farm is moved to a less visually disruptive site.

The project has been caught in a regulatory net for nine years.

"I think that nine years after an application is filed for a permit from the United States government, to have it continuing to face a future of uncertainty is bad for everybody that’s involved," Salazar told reporters.

Read More

Bookmark/Search this post with:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Stacy Feldman's blog
• 2 comments

For years the promise of North America's first offshore wind farm has been just that – a promise. The reality has been a big disappointment: proposals pigeonholed by Bush-era dirty energy policies and NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) opposition.

The Cape Wind project off Nantucket Sound was to be the continent's first offshore wind park. Eight years on, it remains in limbo. The latest hiccup? Two Indian tribes are trying to block the turbines by getting Nantucket Sound listed as a "traditional cultural property." In other words, more delay is on the way.

But the Massachusetts wind farm is no longer the only offshore game in town. With a pro-renewable energy administration in Washington, increasing state and provincial clean energy standards and coming carbon regulations, a big push is underway that could make North America the next big market for offshore wind generation.

The race is on. And for now Ontario, Canada, is in the driver's seat.

China's first large-scale offshore wind turbine has been installed in the East China Sea, the People's Daily and the Shangahi Daily are reporting.

The 300-foot, 400-ton turbine is one of 34 that will be installed at the Shanghai Donghai Bridge Offshore Wind Farm Project and is expected to be operational by May 2010.

When that project starts up, China will join a small club of European countries with working offshore wind farms -- Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

The U.S., whose offshore wind potential exceeds its entire electricity demand, has none -- though 2,000 megawatts of projects have been proposed, and their development appears likely under the Obama administration.

As rumored, New York-based private equity giant Blackstone Group is pouring $1.5 billion into an offshore wind farm in Germany that will power half a million homes and avert 1.6 million tons of CO2 emissions.

It’s being billed as one of the largest wind projects in the North Sea and should spawn a heap of German "green collar" jobs. Says the Blackstone Group:

It is planned to source all technical expertise and substantially all materials from within Germany.

Why would Blackstone choose Germany for its mammoth project? In the company's own words: