Clearly, something needs to be done. And the way Clean Energy Group and Navigant see it in a new report, the last best hope for offshore wind power in the United States lies in a robust, new policy collaboration between several Northeast states – Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.

This is a region that has been expected to lead the way for offshore wind as it grows to provide at least 5.6 percent of total U.S. electricity generation – and perhaps as much as 16.1 percent – in 2050 climate-friendly scenario like the one offered up by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Yet U.S. offshore wind remains stuck at zero.

The multistate idea presented in the report, “Up in the Air,” is as much a plaintive plea as it is an assessment or argument, capturing the mood of the industry in the wake of the apparent collapse of Cape Wind.

“According to the latest news, the country’s first proposed offshore wind project, Cape Wind, might never be built,” the executive summary begins. “Despite the best efforts of Massachusetts state officials to support the market for years, the disappointing news highlights a stark conclusion: current offshore wind policy isn’t working.”

Hard to dispute that, but out of all the moldering scraps on the noisome pile of dashed U.S. offshore wind industry hopes, Cape Wind might not even be the most putrid.

Try this tidbit on for size: In its Energy Master Plan circa 2008, New Jersey called for 1,100 megawatts of generating capacity to be installed off the state’s coast by 2012. Three years after that target date, well, you know the story. Like the rest of the U.S., New Jersey is at zero megawatts of offshore wind – and that’s not even the worst part.

No, the real kicker is, New Jersey has a permitted, 25-megawatt demonstration project, one the U.S. Department of Energy is aching to back with $47 million, ready to roll. “Shovel-ready for three or four years,” is the way Fishermen’s Energy chief operating officer Paul Gallagher put it in an interview.

But New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities is blocking Fishermen’s Energy, saying the project wouldn’t be viable at the cost the developer pegs for its energy, $199 per megawatt-hour, instead using a figure of $263/MWh, which it then deems too expensive to provide a net benefit to the state.

All of which raises the question: How on earth does New Jersey expect to have oodles of offshore wind power if it can’t get behind a single demonstration project? Since 2008, New Jersey has updated its Energy Master Plan, kicking the 1,100-MW offshore wind can down the road to 2020. In pursuit of that goal, New Jersey apparently believes that doing nothing is a better strategy than actually doing a project that would begin it down the path of developing an industry, the obvious road to lowering costs.

Yes, it would be expensive. “Up in the Air” acknowledges that offshore wind is pricey:

“[O]ffshore wind is currently an expensive power resource, much as solar PV technology was twenty years ago. Since that time, policy measures, business models, and incentives – all targeted directly to solar technology – have brought precipitous drops in solar prices to customers. As a result of those concerted policies, in many regions of the country, solar has become an affordable, financeable, and commercially viable source of energy.”

The New Jersey situation, like Cape Wind, highlights the gap between U.S. offshore wind goals and what the report sees as a lack of effective commitment to reaching the goals. Federal offshore wind lease announcements every few months … Deepwater’s under-construction, five-turbine, 30-MW Block Island project … modest moves in Maryland and Virginia.… Better than nothing, sure, but Clean Energy Group and Navigant aren’t fooled.

“To succeed, offshore wind development must be a multi-state policy effort,” their report says. “Single-state solutions are likely doomed to fail. If the goal is to build a robust pipeline of projects at scale, which can begin to better meet renewable obligations and put the region on a path to no-carbon stabilization, states must act together.”

Clean Energy Group and Navigant emphasize that they aren’t talking about an advisory committee that gets together once a year and shares ideas; they’re talking about an effort ultimately robust enough that it “has the authority and capability (particularly, the financial capability) to develop large offshore wind projects on behalf of participating states and to ensure that cost recovery is achieved for the project from the benefiting retail customers in those states.”

Could be a “Multi-State Consortium,” in which the states would share study costs to come up with an RFP for a project that would sell the energy widely in an effort to reduce credit risk and financing costs. Could be a “Bargaining Agent Arrangement,” in which a single state’s existing or new agency would take the lead for the group. Could even be a “Multi-State Power Authority,” although a powerful organization like that would require all the states to get onboard legislatively, leaving it with “the least chance of being implemented.”

Whatever the choice, “Without effective collaboration among the states,” the report says, “a market for offshore wind in the Northeast will not develop and the few small projects in development might well be the last. It is that simple.”