Atlantic States could clean up with offshore windmills

From Lifescience.com:

To estimate how much area would actually be available to place wind farms on in the Middle Atlantic Bight, the researchers had to exclude areas used for bird flyways, toxic waste sites and shipping lanes.

“We don’t want to compete with that use,” Kempton said.

The researchers also had to consider that wind turbines must be spaced half a mile apart, otherwise they create turbulence that interferes with other turbines.

Even with all those allowances, the energy needs of most of the East Coast could be met, or even surpassed, with the installation of over 160,000 turbines, according to Kempton’s findings. But to achieve that energy, the turbines would have to be built out to a depth of 100 meters, according to the research published in the Jan. 24 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The reduced use of fossil fuels would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the area by 57 percent, even in New England, one of the world’s most highly polluting areas, according to the study.

“The fact that we could get such huge reductions there gives me hope for other places,” Kempton said.

Besides the concept of windmills off the Atlantic Coast, which I haven't heard much about before, the striking sentence is that one in red. A half mile apart? Those guys apparently haven't see Altamont Pass.