BRUNSWICK (AP) – The state should look into creating a massive wind farm in the Gulf of Maine to break its reliance on oil and prevent an economic disaster, former Gov. Angus King said.

In a lecture at Bowdoin College, King said Tuesday that the state should launch a huge research and development project to create a $15 billion network of offshore wind turbines in the Gulf of Maine over the next decade.

A “wind ranch” of 1,000 turbines placed 26 miles offshore could provide all of Maine’s electricity as well as heat for its homes, he said.

“The Gulf of Maine is the Saudi Arabia of wind,” King said. “There is nothing I’ve come across that has the large potential this has. We need to be thinking big about this.”

King, who is now working on two conventional wind farm proposals in western Maine, didn’t say how such a project would be paid for, except that it would take both private and government funding.

The cost won’t look so daunting in 10 or 12 years, he said, as oil and gas prices triple. Oil prices could realistically rise to $300 a barrel in 2020, he said, up from the current price of just over $110 a barrel.

“Filling up your (car’s gas) tank will be $200. To fill up the (heating oil) tank in your basement with oil – $2,000.” Maine, with its cold winters, will be uninhabitable, he said.

King’s idea is thought-provoking, said Pete Didisheim, advocacy director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine and a leading wind energy advocate.

Land-based wind projects are far more financially sound, he said, and offshore wind power is at least 10 years away because of the technological challenges involved, such as building large floating platforms.

But, he said, “It makes sense to be looking for big solutions.”

Several wind farms are in the works around the state and Maine’s Legislature approved a bill on Friday that aims to streamline regulation and encourage more wind farms.

A statewide task force in February issued a report recommending that the state aggressively support the idea of offshore wind power, but concluded that it remains too expensive and faces too much regulatory uncertainty to be an immediate contributor.

The technology is a decade away from being cost-effective, the task force concluded.

But King said the rapidly rising cost of oil and gasoline is changing that view.