100b invested in wind & solar produces more energy than oil.

[CentralMass]

3. There have been studies showing that if it could be tapped, the potential kinetic energy of offshore

wind on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. would produce more power than all of the conventional nuclear and fossil fuel plants that we have combined. That of course would be a major undertaking.

There has also been some discussion about building a network of offshore wind farms in the in the new England and mid Atlantic area that would be tied together with a smart grid for load balancing, etc ..

After watching one of the Koch brothers fund an opposition group that is trying to block the building of a proposed offshore wind farm for a decade in MA,I've wondered "what if" they put they put their financial resources into funding that proposed network, instead of fighting it.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/will_offshore_wind_finally_take_off_on_us_east_coast/2693/

"A major project, backed by Google, is planned to link offshore wind farms along the U.S. East Coast to power consumers onshore. The Atlantic Wind Connection is a transmission “backbone” designed to let multiple offshore wind projects essentially plug in to undersea cables as they come online. The first phase, a cable that will stretch the length of the New Jersey coast and be capable of carrying 3,000 megawatts of electricity, is scheduled to begin construction in 2016. The rest of the “backbone” would extend down the coast past Delaware and Maryland, stretching to the coast of Virginia. Along with Google, the project is funded by such companies as Bregal Energy, Marubeni Corporation, and a Belgian transmission company, Elia."

“The East Coast is the Saudi Arabia of offshore wind, because there is enough energy there to provide the entire U.S. with electricity if it was fully developed,” says Matt Huelsenbeck, a marine scientist and offshore wind expert with the non-profit group Oceana. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, part of the Department of Energy, puts the onshore and offshore U.S. wind energy potential at 4,150 gigawatts, around four times more than the entire electricity requirements of the United States. The Northeast and mid-Atlantic coasts in particular are windy spots with water depths that make development feasible."