Comment The first U.S. offshore wind farm was approved on Wednesday after years of opposition.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has given the green light for the wind farm, to be built off the Massachusetts coast.
The 130-turbine, 420-megawatt Cape Wind project will be located in Horseshoe Shoal, Nantucket Sound.
The project is subject to certain conditions designed to protect offshore waters.
The Cape Wind project was in its ninth year of federal review before meeting approval by the Obama administration this week.
Various groups, including the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Martha's Vineyard, have said they will sue to stop the Cape Wind project from being built, saying it will interfere with sacred rituals and desecrate tribal burial sites.
Adamant opposition also came from the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose six-acre family compound in Hyannis Port overlooks the Nantucket Sound.
Salazar responded to the various complaints by explaining that while he understands the concerns of opposition groups, he weighs them against the nation's need for new renewable sources of energy.
The $1 billion facility will produce enough electricity to power roughly 400,000 houses and claims that it can generate power by 2012.
German conglomerate Siemens AG will provide the turbines.
Several projects that could power hundreds of thousands of homes have already been proposed for the East Coast and the Great Lakes-the Cape Wind project may encourage approval for these projects in the coming months.
Until next time,
Hilary
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