Today's the opening day of Maryland's General Assembly, and supporters of developing offshore wind power plan to "swarm" the State House to press legislators to make it a priority, even as they are preoccupied with closing a massive budget gap.   Lawmakers gather at noon to launch the 90-day session.

Environmental activists and union leaders have joined forces this year to seek legislation that would require power companies to sign long-term contracts with developers of offshore wind projects. They contend that's needed to overcome the financing hurdles the fledgling industry faces.

Winds off the Atlantic coast are much stronger and more reliable than they are over land, where all industrial wind turbines have been placed so far.   Not everyone agrees, though, that offshore wind deserves another push from government.

Professor Benjamin F. Hobbs, director of the Environment, Energy, Sustainability & Health Institute at Johns Hopkins University, contends that mandating development of offshore wind in that way would do little for the environment while boosting energy costs consumers must pay.   Better, he says, to let the market decide which forms of renewable energy are the most economical.

"Offshore wind power plants are slightly more productive than onshore wind plants but not enough to make up for the much greater construction and transmission costs (as much as double onshore costs)," Hobbs wrote in a letter published last week in The Baltimore Sun. He said he'd concluded that after conducting a study comparing the costs of offshore wind development versus onshore in Great Britain.

(Wind turbines off Germany, AFP/Getty 2010)