Google leads investment in new East Coast wind project
Google is leading several large investors in a newly planned five billion dollar project to power the US East Coast with wind from the Atlantic Ocean. The project would set up offshore wind turbines and a new transmission grid stretching 350 miles from New Jersey to Virginia. Google will provide a little over one third of the initial funding for the wind energy project.
Rick Needham, director of green business operations and strategy at Google, described the project as a new "superhighway" for alternative energy, creating jobs and eventually providing enough power to serve 1.9 million households.
"We're willing to take calculated risks on large-scale projects that can move an industry. Indeed, that is what's made our company so successful to date," Needham told a news conference.
The companies said they hoped to begin work on the project, called the Atlantic Wind Connection, in early 2013 and complete it by 2020, subject to government approval.
Good Energies, a company which invests in green energy, is also investing 37.5% in the project, while Japanese trading house Marubeni has a 15% stake. John Breckenridge, an executive at Good Energies, described the Atlantic Wind Connection as landmark in its ambition, hoping that it would succeed in "fixing a lot of what's been done wrong" in renewable energy.
The investors said they would not seek government funding. The US Congress has soured on efforts to battle climate change, with legislation to impose restrictions on carbon emissions all but dead in the Senate.
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