US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday announced the federal government will move forward with plans to accept applications to develop wind facilities off the coast of Rhode Island.

By 2012, Salazar predicted, “the first offshore leases for wind power in the federal waters off Rhode Island will in fact be signed by the United States of America and those developers of offshore wind.”

The secretary boasted that the National Renewable Energy Lab has estimated Rhode Island’s offshore wind farms could generate 1,000 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power most of the United States.

The project has support from the state’s congressional delegation as well as from Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

Read more on the Rhode Island offshore wind project on HuffPost Green where the story was originally published.

Photo Caption: US Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar speaks at the 41st Washington Conference on the Americas at the State Department in Washington, DC on May 11, 2011.