R.I. offshore wind farm starts construction

[PoliticAverse]

The developer of the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm installed the first steel foundation for the project off Rhode Island’s coast.

The Sunday installation of Deepwater Wind Block Island Wind Farm came just in time for a Monday tour of the site that will include Obama administration officials, lawmakers and Rhode Island’s governor, among others.

“It was a very big moment,” Jeffrey Grybowski, Chief Executive Officer of Deepwater Wind, told the Providence Journal shortly after watching the first foundation’s installation from a boat.

The company had hoped to install the foundation on Thursday, but the weather did not cooperate, the Journal reported.

Read the rest at: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/249253-ri-offshore-wind-farm-starts-construction

[GliderGuider]

1. I'd prefer that every time a new wind farm is begun a FF plant has to close.

I'd love to see regulations requiring that the jurisdiction take the same amount of coal or natural gas generating capacity offline as the capacity of the wind plant being added. That is, for every gigawatt of wind or solar capacity that is built, a gigawatt of coal or gas capacity has to close. The energy literate may recognize an interesting hook built into that proposal.

On edit: Never mind, I just saw the problem with it. It would impede the building of wind and solar, but not coal or gas. Back to the drawing board. Maybe we just need to bite the bullet and legislate a complete moratorium on building FF power plants.