Construction has begun on the first U.S. offshore wind turbine, according to Cape Wind Associates, the organization that is planning to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound off of Cape Cod, Mass. The tower is designed to provide the authorities that must approve the larger project, including the U.S. EPA and the Mass. Department of Environmental Protection, with meteorological and oceanographic data. James Manwell, director of the University of Massachusetts–Amherst’s Renewable Energy Research Laboratory, estimates that at 60 meters (the expected height of many offshore turbines), wind speeds reach at least 7.9 meters/second (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2001, 35, 358A–359A). The proposed wind farm, which experts project could provide half of the electricity used on Cape Cod and the nearby islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, has already overcome one legal objection to its construction, but it remains controversial. For more information, go to www.capewind.org.