Offshore Wind Power

The road to building out renewable energy whether it be solar, bio fuels, or wind is fraught with issues whether they be regulatory or industry hostility that prevents real progress. This is an interesting read from the Huffington Post about a fellow who has tried for years to build offshore wind power in the North East.

In 2001, Jim Gordon, a well-heeled developer of natural gas plants in New England, took up a long-discussed but never-pursued idea that advocates said would usher in a new era of clean energy in America: an ocean-based wind farm off the shores of Cape Cod.

The advantages of the site seemed plain: Relentless, hard-driving winds, shallow shoals several miles offshore on which to anchor large turbines, and, perhaps most importantly, a left-leaning population inclined to support what was already viewed at the time as an overdue migration away from dirtier sources of electricity.

“We have real and looming environmental problems on the horizon,” Gordon told reporters that summer, as he prepared to apply for the necessary federal and state permits. “Is this going to solve these problems? No. But it is going to help.”

Almost 12 years later, the now 59-year-old Gordon, who graduated from Boston University during the 1970s oil crises with a degree in communications and, he says, vague designs on film school before he set his sights on the energy business, is still pressing his case. Not a single turbine is in the water.

read more here

What do you think of this struggle? Give us your thoughts below on building offshore wind power in places where the wind blows steady and it will not bother local communities.