Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he is optimistic that the nation's first offshore wind farm will break ground this year after more than a decade of delays.
Salazar said in an interview with The Associated Press that he thinks "there is a good chance it will happen before the end of the year," because developers of Cape Wind have agreements for utilities to purchase about 75 percent of the power the Massachusetts project expects to generate.
Developers of the $2.6 billion wind farm off Cape Cod have been working to develop the project since 2001. Salazar said the delays and lawsuits illustrate the difficulty of developing new energy sources. But he said regulatory improvements made in recent years should allow other offshore projects to follow more quickly.
