Peter Mandelstam, Bluewater Wind

Mendelstam works for Bluewater Wind, a company working on developing an offshore project 11 miles off the coast of Delaware. He notes the increasing acceptance and respect his company is getting from the larger energy industry.

Peter kicks things off with a densely-packed slide of text - all of the regulatory hurdles and permits necessary to complete an offshore project. He says this isn't necessarily a problem - in the end, all of these studies will prove the worthiness of an offshore project. But the vetting process could stand to be streamlined.

He also put up a striking slide - can't find the picture on the web, unfortunately - of bird flight paths before and after an offshore wind project in Denmark. Before, flight paths were random and scattered throughout the monitoring area. After, birds' paths followed diagonal paths through the wind farm. "Birds aren't stupid," says Mandelstam. They know how to avoid turbines. He cites studies that find fewer than 1 bird strike per turbine per year. More important than individual birds, though, is the viability of entire bird populations at risk thanks to climate change, mercury, and other fossil-fuel externalities.

His proposed project in Chesapeake Bay could have a $200 million -plus direct economic impact for Delaware workers.

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