(Former Gov.) King pushes for offshore wind turbines (Maine)

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=181775&ac=PHnws

BRUNSWICK — As governor, Angus King liked to pitch a big idea, like giving laptop computers to all seventh-graders.

Now, as a wind energy entrepreneur, he's floating a whopper.

King said Tuesday that the state should launch a massive research and development effort to create a $15 billion network of offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine over the next 10 years. Only something as ambitious as 1,000 turbines spinning 26 miles off the Maine coast will be able to break the state's reliance on oil and prevent an economic catastrophe, he said.

"The Gulf of Maine is the Saudi Arabia of wind," King said. "There is nothing I've come across that has the large potential this has We need to be thinking big about this."

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