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A plan to build an offshore wind farm in the Nantucket Sound has received a boost this week when the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, announced approval of the project. The proposal called Cape Wind, which has been stalled for nine years, would be the first utilities-scale offshore wind farm in the United States, potentially providing as much as 75 percent of the electricity demand for the surrounding area. Nantucket Sound is a triangular shaped area in the Atlantic Ocean between Nantucket, Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard off the Massachusetts coast. Cape Wind faced opposition right from the beginning from a group calling itself the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound which includes several Chambers of Commerce in the area, fishing groups, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and billionaire oil heir William Koch. The Alliance has already vowed to throw up legal roadblocks in the face of the project. The day after the project received approval, Massachusetts State Treasurer Timothy Cahill addressed business executives calling wind farms “quaint” saying it will make Massachusetts “less competitive.” Opponents also contend that the wind farm could potentially raise electricity prices for residents.

GUEST: John Rogers, Senior Energy Analyst in the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Find out more at www.ucsusa.org and www.usowc.org.