U.S. rents Shore breeze to wind-electric power companies

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was in Atlantic City today to lease four New Jersey and one Delaware site out on the Continental Shelf to companies that want to develop it for wind-powered electrical-generating sites. They'll build weather stations, and then, maybe, power stations.

He didn't say how much the companies were paying. "They're fairly nominal fees,"  Interior spokesman Ken Quimby told me later. "It's around 25 cents per acre acquisition, $3 per acre rental, $5 per acre when they put a tower down."

They're not charging much, since that's how Interior typically operates -- they're encouraging industry -- and especially this industry, which has a "clean" reputation. Here's the five leases:

New Jersey  15 – 18 miles offshore: Babcock & Brown affiliate Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy, LLC
New Jersey  6 – 9 miles: Locally-based Fishermen's Energy of New Jersey, LLC 
New Jersey  15 – 18 miles: FirstWind affiliate  Deepwater Wind, LLC 
New Jersey  12 – 15 miles: Deepwater Wind, LLC
Delaware  14 miles:  Bluewater Wind Delaware, LLC