People have been using wind power for thousands of years. In America, early settlers used windmills around the North Eastern part of the country to grind grain. In the West, ranchers used wind to pump water and generate electricity. In the 1980's, the first wind farms were built in California to harness energy to be used to create electricity.
Currently, all wind farms in the United States are onshore farms, meaning they are on land. In 2007, Bluewater Wind was awarded a contract to create the first offshore wind farm in the United States off the coast of Delaware in the Atlantic Ocean. Delaware seems, at least to me, to be an unlikely choice for this ground breaking project at first. After doing some research, I realized that the offshore wind farm was actually the perfect answer to several problems that the state is facing.
The Delaware legislature has had concerns about the rising price of utilities and passed two bills recently aimed at solving the growing energy crisis for their state. Senate Bill 74 required that 20% of the state's electricity come from renewable sources by the year 2019. House Bill 6 required Delmarva Power, the local utility provider, to request proposals for new power plants in order to meet increasing energy demands and to provide stable electricity prices. An offshore wind farm would be an apparent solution to all of these dilemmas.
To further sweeten the deal, Bluewater Wind has actually offered to sell the electricity generated from the wind farm at a pre-determined price for the next 25 years. Proponents claim that the wind farm will stabilize the price of electricity because the energy source is renewable and the final price of electricity generated does not rely on unstable factors such as the price of fossil fuels. Wind is an inexpensive, inexhaustible fuel source which generates no pollutants or other forms of toxic waste.
Bluewater Wind has proposed a location for the park which is around 13 miles off the Delaware coast. According to the company, the farm should not be visibly intrusive or damage the view of the ocean from the coastline as the farm will only be minimally visible during the winter months. During the hazy days of summer, the farm should not be visible at all.
Europe has been harnessing the power of offshore wind for their energy needs for over 15 years. Currently, hundreds of giant windmills are in the North Sea and generate more than 1,000 megawatts of power. In the United States, offshore wind farm projects are being considered in Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia.
Back in Delaware, the wind farm project still has some hurdles to overcome until it is completed. The entire process of planning and constructing the wind farm will take several years and will involve dealing with dozens of state and Federal agencies. Realistically, it could take until 2012 by some estimates until the farm is operational and provides the residents of Delaware with economical and environmentally friendly energy for consumption.
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