It's an idea I like a lot better than oil rigs. 

In an article published by the Tacoma News Tribune, Les Blumenthal of McClatchy's Washington Bureau, writes about the possibilities of generating all our energy needs from huge windmills located just over the horizons of our coasts.  "Picture 400 super-size windmills spinning in a steady, stiff ocean breeze just beyond the horizon off the Washington coast, generating enough electricity to supply the needs of Seattle and Tacoma." 

Blumenthal reports that Walter Musial, a senior engineer with the Energy Department’s Wind Technology Center in Colorado, says that offshore windmill projects could start to appear between 2012 and 2015. 

Turns out that winds are generally stronger and blow more consistently over water than over land.  While land-based turbines, like those in Eastern Washington or along the Columbia River Gorge, produce electricity a third of the time, an off-shore wind turbine would likely be able to operate between 45 and 50 percent of the time.  "The offshore winds along the Northwest coast are among the best in the United States, according to the Department of Energy." 

Burton Hamner, president of Grays Harbor Ocean Energy Co., has identified a potential windmill site about a dozen miles off the Washington coast, "a 60-mile long, 30-mile wide shelf in the Pacific stretching north from the mouth of the Columbia River to Long Beach that could be ideal for offshore wind farms. The shelf was formed by sediment caught by northerly currents as it flows out of the Columbia. The water is about 250 feet deep, and windmills could be set on platforms or anchored to the seabed using existing technology."

"Underwater cables would bring the power onshore. About 35 miles of new transmission line would have to be built from Grays Harbor to the site of an abandoned nuclear plant at Satsop, west of Olympia. Before work on the nuclear plant was halted in the early 1980s, a major transmission line was installed that links to the Northwest electric grid."

Hamner believes that offshore windmills could provide enough electricity to meet the demand for all of Western Washington. 

Hm.  Lots of potential and lots of potential pitfalls, but a far more sustainable alternative than drilling for oil.