"If you are first, you are going to be effectively in the driver seat for who gets the shoreside industrial development, who's going to get the jobs (and) where they'll build the first turbine construction facility," said Michael Conathan at the Center for American Progress.
WASHINGTON -- Europe: 1,662 turbines; United States: 0. After delays that left the American industry years behind other nations, the first wind farm off the U.S. coast should finally produce electricity by 2015.
With Americans living atop mountains of coal and reserves of petroleum and natural gas, it is little wonder there is resistance to financing a renewable but expensive offshore energy resource that remains untapped in the United States.
Despite several proposals, and the blessing of environmentalists who describe them as sustainable alternatives to coal, not a single wind farm off the Atlantic coast has been built.
Several are in the works, but they have run up against political hurdles in states like Maryland and Virginia, where lawmakers are hesitant to offer government subsidies.
As veteran energy expert Jim Lanard, president of the Offshore Wind Development Coalition, noted, Europeans jumped ahead with heavy subsidization of renewables like wind because they lacked the oil to meet their energy needs.
With far more indigenous energy supply, "there's less pressure for the United States to do more in the renewable sector than in Europe, where there's a greater pressure to achieve energy independence," Lanard said.
"If you're from a state with lots of coal, it doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or a Republican, you're going to support an energy policy with coal," Lanard said.
Coal provides 37% of U.S. electricity, compared to natural gas at 30%. Far behind is onshore wind at 3.4%, but offshore resources would help boost that figure.
For some U.S. lawmakers the jury is still out as to how human activity influences climate change. The American public has shown a stubborn indifference to the phenomenon compared to Europeans.
But wind received a shot in the arm in January, when Congress extended tax credits on all wind energy projects for this year. Such grants can amount to 30% of investment costs.
Two offshore projects in particular will benefit, including Cape Wind, whose 130 huge turbines are being developed in Massachusetts for the waters near Martha's Vineyard, the tony island playground where President Barack Obama and other VIPs spend their vacations.
One of the state's richest men, the billionaire conservative coal and gas investor Bill Koch, has spent years campaigning in vain against the project.
A smaller wind farm of five turbines in water three miles off Block Island in Rhode Island is aimed at replacing diesel generators that have powered the community for years.
