Picture 400 super-size windmills spinning in a steady, stiff ocean breeze miles off the coasts of California, New England, the mid-Atlantic, Washington state, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.
Even as Congress is embroiled in a sharp debate over whether to allow increased offshore oil and gas drilling, others are seriously working to develop a green source of energy along the outer continental shelf.
The winds blowing 15 miles or even farther off the U.S. coasts potentially could produce 900,000 megawatts of electricity, or roughly the same amount as nearly all the nation's existing power sources combined, according to Department of Energy estimates.
"This is a slam dunk," said George Hart, chief technical officer at the Ocean Energy Institute, a Maine-based research center. "None of this is high-tech. It can be done."
