A study by the University of Delaware and Stanford University says there is enough energy in the breezes that blow off the Mid-Atlantic Coast to power much of the Eastern Seaboard… and then some. In this UD article, the study is the first empirical analysis in the country of a large-scale region’s potential offshore wind-energy supply:

Willett Kempton, Richard Garvine and Amardeep Dhanju at the University of Delaware and Mark Jacobson and Cristina Archer at Stanford, found that the wind over the Middle Atlantic Bight, the aquatic region from Cape Cod, Mass., to Cape Hatteras, N.C., could produce 330 gigawatts (GW) of average electrical power if thousands of wind turbines were installed off the coast.

The report says that same area uses about 185 gigawatts, produced from electricity, gasoline, fuel oil and natural gas sources. Researchers say the potential also takes into account some exclusion zones for these at-sea wind turbines… such as bird flyways and shipping zones.