Offshore Wind Power | Mapping the Offshore Wind Resource
Many areas of the world, including the US East Coast, now appear to have huge energy resources offshore, on their continential shelves. One can also appreciate the size of the global resource by comparing maps of global winds and continental shelves (first link below).
Global electric use, wind, and continental shelves.
Global winds, animation over 12 months, from NASA.
Monthly average wind; interactively zoom in on an ocean region, from Oregon State U.
US Mid-Atlantic; high-resolution image of the map used for the analysis in the 2007 Geophysical Research Letters article, in PDF (400k) or eps (6 meg).
(old) US East Coast wind and bathymetry (from Baley, does not analyze exclusions for conflicting use).