Wind Energy Project Offshore From New Jersey To Virginia
It looks like we are finally getting a major wind energy project in the USA. The East Coast with its large population near the Atlantic Ocean where the wind turbines will be located is about to become the American center for alternative energy. When complete this project is to generate the equivalent energy to 5 nuclear power plants. New Jersey and Delaware will be getting the first phase of this new electricity generating facility. Good news for America, at last some efforts are being made towards real energy independence.
NYTimes.com
Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Praise, and Backing
By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: October 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — Google and a New York financial firm have each agreed to invest heavily in a proposed $5 billion transmission backbone for future offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard that could ultimately transform the region's electrical map.
The system's backbone cable, with a capacity of 6,000 megawatts, equal to the output of five large nuclear reactors, would run in shallow trenches on the seabed in federal waters 15 to 20 miles offshore, from northern New Jersey to Norfolk, Va. The notion would be to harvest energy from turbines in an area where the wind is strong but the hulking towers would barely be visible.
Trans-Elect estimated that construction would cost $5 billion, plus financing and permit fees. The $1.8 billion first phase, a 150-mile stretch from northern New Jersey to Rehoboth Beach, Del., could go into service by early 2016, it said. The rest would not be completed until 2021 at the earliest.
The 350-mile underwater spine, which could remove some critical obstacles to wind power development, has stirred excitement among investors, government officials and environmentalists who have been briefed on it.
Google and Good Energies, an investment firm specializing in renewable energy, have each agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project. They are likely to bring in additional investors, which would reduce their stakes.
If they hold on to their stakes, that would come to an initial investment of about $200 million apiece in the first phase of construction alone, said Robert L. Mitchell, the chief executive of Trans-Elect, the Maryland-based transmission-line company that proposed the venture.
Marubeni, a Japanese trading company, has taken a 15 percent stake. Trans-Elect said it hoped to begin construction in 2013.
For more on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/earth/12wind.html?th&emc=th
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