After eight years of vying, final approvals to the Cape Wind Project have finally gone through, and a 28 year lease marks the first of its kind in the US. The Cape Wind Project will be the first of many offshore wind project in the US, and other offshore wind projects in the US include: the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act in New Jersey, a project in Rhode Island, several projects in New York, and in Maine, Delaware and even Ohio (in Lake Erie). While the US is a major competitor in many renewable energy technologies, the United States lags behind many European countries in the development of offshore renewable energy. The United Kingdom, Germany and Denmark are two countries which are far ahead of the game, as they already produce the great majority of offshore wind energy in the world.
The implications of such major projects are not as large as should be expected from the amount of hype around these recent US projects. While the scale of projects in the US is not small, compared to European nations, especially Germany, which will likely soon become the second in the world for offshore wind power generation despite its limited coastline, and the UK, which has a project in the works for 2020 that is valued at $150 billion. Despite being dwarfed by many European projects, the fact that the United States overcame eight years of legislative gridlock is a major breakthrough, and it is a great step in securing American independence from foreign oil by both curbing the need at the level of utilities and for the production of greener electricity that will go on to provide energy to electric vehicles, thus helping to substitute the great thirst that the transportation sector has for oil.
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