Wind power could supply all the energy needs of much of the East Coast and then some, if a phalanx of wind turbines running from Massachusetts to North Carolina were installed offshore, a new study concludes. Though local residents often object to wind farms intruding on their landscape and views, wind power has become an increasingly attractive option for generating clean energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions for several countries. Offshore wind farms in Denmark and the United Kingdom are now used to generate electricity, with Denmark drawing 20 percent of its energy from wind power. But determining just how much ocean area is available and how much energy a wind farm can actually produce is tricky and had yet to be done for this area of the Atlantic. ‘In doing our surveys and watching the public debate, we saw that no one had solid empirical data on the actual size of the offshore wind resource, and we felt this was important for policy decisions,’ said study author Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware. An ideal location Oceans make ideal locations for wind turbines because they ‘are particularly windy all over,’ Kempton said. The […]