Windmills, Energy
Energy experts are set to meet in Madison, Wisconsin and Toledo, Ohio, next month to talk about the prospects of implanting giant electricity-generating windmills in the Great Lakes. Advocates believe offshore wind turbines would be a power generation jackpot. Opponents fear the windmills' impact on the lakes' aesthetics, tourism and fishing.
Offshore turbines would be a huge undertaking for any utility. To generate a sizable amount of power, a company would have to install rows of them, either anchoring them to the lakes' bottom in relatively shallow water or allowing them to float. Pricetags could stretch into the tens of millions of dollars.
The turbines would be large, towering as high as 400 feet with blade spans wider than a 150 feet. The payoff would come in increased energy production. Winds over water are generally stronger, less turbulent and more consistent than on land. Major population and industrial centers such as Cleveland, Chicago, Gary, Ind., and Milwaukee sit on the Great Lakes' shores, reducing the need for long-distance transmission and providing energy at the same time.
The concept has been used before. Several European nations, including Denmark and Great Britain, have developed wind farms in the North and Baltic seas. Houston-based Superior Renewable Energy plans to build a 170-turbine farm in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 miles off Padre Island. Over 50 turbines are planned off Galveston, Texas, and at least three other offshore projects have been proposed on the East Coast - one off Long Island and another off Cape Cod.
But the idea has been slow to catch on in the Great Lakes region. Green Energy Ohio last fall built a wind-monitoring tower a few miles off Cleveland's Lake Erie shoreline to test the lake's potential for offshore turbines. But Ohio is looking toward land-based turbines.
A 2004 report commissioned by the Wisconsin Focus on Energy Program, a partnership between the state and utilities to promote renewable sources, to study Lake Michigan wind speeds and shallows found the southern coastline holds great promise.
Seventh Generation Energy Systems, a nonprofit engineering firm, built a $114,500 tower two miles off Racine's Lake Michigan shoreline last August to monitor wind speeds for three years. The state gave $49,000 for the project. The risk in every proposal would be the potential impact on fish habitats, lake bottoms and migratory birds. And of course, what happens to the view that many cities and towns cherish?
May 31, 2006 6:26 AM | Category: Technology