A week after the Interior Department signed the lease for a long-delayed offshore wind venture off the coast of Massachusetts, an industrial partnership that includes the likes of Google announced plans to build an underwater transmission line along the east coast of the United States.

The $5-billion venture has generated plenty of buzz, although it could take more than a decade to bring everything on line. Once complete, however, the Atlantic Wind Connection would be capable of carrying 6,000 megawatts of wind power to some 1.9 million homes, according to the consortium.

Of course, the problem with offshore wind has never been one of potential. The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States’ wind resource at more than 4,000 gigawatts, which is roughly four times larger than the entire country’s current generation capacity. NREL’s latest assessment, issued last week, can be found here.

But so far none of that capacity has been tapped, and those who have tried have encountered regulatory – and in at least one notable instance public – resistance. Some have even questioned whether the money will be there for the Cape Wind project, but the developer is expressing confidence that the project will move forward now that the lease has been signed.

In the meantime, you can read more about the Atlantic Wind Connection on the official Google Blog.