http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=483168Last week’s approval of a wind farm off the Massachusetts shore has wind energy developers in other states riding a wave of new momentum, even as the Gulf Coast oil spill casts doubt on the future of drilling.
From Maine to North Carolina, efforts to plant enormous wind turbines on the ocean floor got a boost when the U.S. Interior Department signed off on 130 wind turbines five miles off the coast of Cape Cod, the first time an offshore wind project has passed federal muster.
The next day, in New Jersey, a company called Fishermen’s Energy launched a buoy to measure wind speed and temperatures to determine the best location to site turbines. If all goes as the company hopes, construction on up to 100 offshore turbines could begin next year, says spokeswoman Rhonda Jackson.
In Delaware, where another offshore project is in the works, officials also were watching the federal government’s decision closely. “People that I know were not doing anything else that morning, waiting for that announcement,” says Willett Kempton, a wind energy expert at the University of Delaware. “It was a month of buildup.” The Delaware proposal recently cleared a hurdle of its own when the U.S. Interior Department last month issued a “Request for Interest” from developers interested in locating turbines in federal waters.
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