New Bedford once lit the world with whale oil. Now it wants to do the same with wind power

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT
Associated Press

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — The vessel UHF Felicity pulled into the port of New Bedford shortly before 5:00 Wednesday afternoon carrying massive parts for offshore wind turbines. New Bedford was once known as the city that lit the world, exporting whale oil for lamps in the early 1800s. Workers packed the docks, unloading casks of oil that had been extracted at sea from whale carcasses and brought in by a fleet of hundreds of whaling ships. Now more than 170 years later New Bedford aspires to light the world again, in a different relationship with the sea, as the ship arrived with parts for the country’s first commercial offshore wind farm. Once assembled out on the water this summer, the turbines will stand more than 850 feet high.