As the United States struggles to cope with stubbornly-high unemployment rates and a pollution heavy electricity sector, it has turned to alternative energy as a potential solution to both problems. Not surprisingly, most of the attention has focused on well established industries like onshore wind, solar, and nuclear. Yet, over the last two years another once-obscure industry has begun to carry increasing interest from private and public entities alike: offshore wind.
Although a nascent industry, offshore wind faces many of the same hurdles that other renewable industries and government agencies have gained experience in overcoming, suggesting offshore wind could be built out quicker than would be expected. Indeed, given the immense potential benefits of offshore wind, from the investment and employment derived from founding a novel industry to the exploitation of a significant renewable resource, achieving rapid expansion should be a top priority for the public and private sectors. Actions taken by both sides thus far suggest public and private entities agree with this assessment, but to date no offshore wind turbines have been erected in the United States. Why is this?
The focus on innovation in Obama’s State of the Union marks a new high point for clean energy R&D advocacy. In the coming months, politicians and policy makers will likely align around proposals to encourage everything from basic research to putting solar panels on our roofs and hybrids in our garages. It is easy, in such an environment, to forget the barren stretch of time between the oil crisis induced renewable energy craze of the 1970s and the present day. During this time, funding dried up, programs were cut, and renewable energy research and deployment was forced to go abroad or wither in an apathetic United States.
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change released a 
