Local Blowback From Wind Farms

  • Two cranes lift wind turbine blades off the ground at the Noble Environmental Power wind farm in Ellenburg, NY. (Photo by David Sommerstein)

America’s hunger for new, greener sources of electricity, and a generous
federal tax credit, are fueling a wind power boom. According to the
industry, almost 6,000 megawatts of new wind energy are under construction
nationwide. That’s 40% of all existing wind power in the U.S. The federal
government doesn’t regulate many aspects of wind power. Neither do many
states. That puts a lot of pressure on local town councils to decide if a wind
farm will be a good neighbor. David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

America’s hunger for new, greener sources of electricity, and a generous
federal tax credit, are fueling a wind power boom. According to the
industry, almost 6,000 megawatts of new wind energy are under construction
nationwide. That’s 40% of all existing wind power in the U.S. The federal
government doesn’t regulate many aspects of wind power. Neither do many
states. That puts a lot of pressure on local town councils to decide if a wind
farm will be a good neighbor. David Sommerstein reports:


It’s 7:30 in the morning on a crystal clear day in northern New York State.
A dozen ironworkers huddle between two monstrous red cranes and one
gleaming white tower, rising 22 stories tall:


“Everybody know their tasks? Anybody got any questions? Got a beautiful
day to fly this thing. No wind.”


Today the crew’s going to lift the thing you see spinning on a wind turbine –
three blades twice the length of semi trucks – to the top of the tower and
attach it. Dave Talley’s the supervisor. He’s from Petersburg, Tennessee:


“I live 20 miles from the Jack Daniels distillery.”


Talley’s helped build some of the wonders of the modern world: the
monorail at Disney World, the world’s largest furnace, the largest stamping
press.


“Yeah, we got a saying in our business. My work is my play, my play is my
work. I work harder than I play, and I play hard. If it ain’t hard, I ain’t
playin’. If it ain’t fun, I ain’t sayin’. And that’s all I’m sayin’.”


The cranes ease the blades into the air. Talley’s crew will do this 122 times
to erect Noble Environmental Power’s wind farm here. Noble’s owned by JP
Morgan Partners. The company spent millions of dollars and years of
permitting and negotiating to get to this point.


The wind farm touched off a fiery debate in town. Local board meetings
erupted in yelling. Neighbors and families became estranged:


“I think there’s a lot of people who have family members who totally fight
over it. I mean my sister and I don’t. We just don’t discuss it.”


Julie Ribot can see the turbines from her porch. Her sister works for the
wind power company. Ribot, however, is dead set against them:


“I don’t want to live here. There’s supposed to be 27 going up across the
street alone. Somebody said, ‘oh, it’s just like a ceiling fan.’ Well, would
you want 27 ceiling fans going off in your living room? No.”


Just next door to Ribot, Richard Widalski thinks they’re great:


“We do have to find an alternative source of energy. The price of oil and
everything, it’s getting ridiculous. I was told it’ll put up 1.5 megawatts of
power, which will, y’know, supply power for quite a few homes.”


Wind developers pay landowners thousands of dollars a year for hosting
turbines on their land. But neighbors have to live with the windmills, too,
and they don’t get paid. Planner John Tenbush says money pits haves
against have-nots in a small town:


“One guy’s gonna get a lot of money and the guy right next door, who’s
going to suffer from the noise or the blinking effect or some other adverse
impact, gets nothing.”


Across the country, industrial-scale wind project are forcing small, mostly
rural town councils to make big decisions. The federal government and
most states offer little guidance on a blizzard of complicated issues: how far
should the turbines be from a house or a road? How loud can they be? Do
they boost or blemish property values? Do they kill too many birds?


David Duff is on the planning board in nearby St. Lawrence County. He
says it’s easy for town councils to get in over their heads:


“Maybe they buy snowplows and they put out contracts for salt. They are
not in the same league in terms of negotiating as a multinational company
who has done this before.”


Until regulation catches up, the burden falls on local town councils when
wind power moves in.


For the Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

New Coal Plants on the Drawing Board

  • Members of Dooda Desert Rock. From left, Alice Gilmore, Elouise Brown, her son JC, her brother-in-law and her grandfather, Julius Gilmore. Her grandparents Alice and Julius lived their whole lives just down the hill from here. They would have to be relocated if the power plant is built. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)

To meet the country’s growing demand for
energy, there are about 150 new
coal-burning power plants on the drawing board.
But not everyone is thrilled about relying on
coal as a future energy source. Daniel Kraker
takes us to a place where people have
lived next to these power plants for decades.
And now they’re fighting plans to build another
one:

Transcript

There’s been a lot of talk about developing clean energy sources, like wind and solar
power. But coal is still king. And to meet the country’s growing energy demand there are
about 150 new coal fired power plants on the drawing board. But not everyone is thrilled
about relying on coal as a significant future energy source. Daniel Kraker takes us to a
place where people have lived next to these power plants for decades. And now they’re
fighting plans to build another one:


In northwest New Mexico, the Navajo Indian reservation is a spectacular other-worldly
landscape of mesas and giant sandstone rock formations jutting out of the red earth.
Underneath the ground are huge reserves of coal. This is where the Navajo government
and a company called Sithe Global Power want to build a 1500-megawatt power plant
called Desert Rock, and it’s here where a small group of Navajos who oppose the project
have set up their base of resistance.


“It’s called Dooda Desert Rock, Dooda means ‘no’ in Navajo.”


That’s Elouise Brown. She’s president of a group of Navajos who live near the proposed
construction site. They’ve been camped out there since December, in a small plywood
shack attached to a trailer. Brown says she’s quit her day job to protest the project full-time:


“I think this whole coal plant is just, people are just looking at dollar signs. They don’t
care about their people, they don’t care about their mother earth, global warming…And I
think it’s about time that we be heard, we’re going to stand here and stay here until
somebody listens to us.”


Brown walks outside the shack with her son and grandfather, Julius Gilmore. He points
out in Navajo where the power plant would go.


“You see the drill down there? It’s just northeast of there…”


“And that’s your grandfather’s house right there?”


“Yes.”


Her grandparents have spent their entire life there. They’ll have to be relocated if the plant
is built.


From the protestors’ camp the tips of two giant smokestacks are visible. The Four Corners
and San Juan Generating Stations were built in the 1970s during the last big construction
wave of coal fired plants. Desert Rock would be the third power plant in this area. Frank
Maisano is a spokesman for Desert Rock:


“Already in the region there is 2300 megawatts of new requests for power, and that is just to
satisfy massive growth in the region right now. Those who say that, ‘Oh we just won’t use
coal.’ They’re not looking at the larger picture, which says we really do have to have a
balanced approach, not just that we don’t like this one little carbon dioxide emission that
comes from this plant.”


Maisano says Desert Rock would be one of the cleanest coal fired plants in the country.
He says scrubbers would remove many of the harmful chemicals that can lead to health
problems and smog. And it would cough up less carbon dioxide than the older generation
of coal-fired plants.


“It’s a higher heat rate so that the coal is heated up so it combusts more completely,
basically what you’re doing is, you’re getting more efficiency, you’re getting more
megawatts out of less coal.”


Still, Desert Rock would emit about 10 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s only about
15% less than older plants. There are 150 coal fired plants like this one on the
drawing board across the country, and 40 of those are likely to start up in the next five
years.


Many environmentalists worry if Desert Rock and other coal plants are built, we’ll be
saddling the country with growing greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come.
Roger Clark is Air and Energy Director with the Grand Canyon Trust:


“As a nation we should consider a ban on all new coal plants. We’re at a point now where
we need to start reversing the amount of greenhouse gasses that we’re putting into the
atmosphere. It’s 19th century technology here in the 21st century that is something that we
don’t need.”


The country’s population is growing, and our thirst for energy is growing right along with
it. Roger Clark and others believe we can meet that growing demand through energy
efficiency improvements, combined with investments in renewables.


Here in the southwest, the Navajo Nation is in the early stages of developing a wind farm.
But that would only produce 200 megawatts of electricity; Desert Rock would be seven
times that size.


The tribe’s primary focus in this debate isn’t CO2 emissions, or climate change, it’s
revenue. Desert Rock would generate an estimated 50 million dollars annually for the
impoverished tribe. If the plant gets its final environmental approvals, and it isn’t taken to
court, that money could start flowing as early as 2012.


For the Environment Report, I’m Daniel Kraker

Related Links

Using Energy More Efficiently

  • The Sappi paper mill in Cloquet Minnesota produces most of the electricity it needs, using steam that also powers the industrial process. Sappi can even sell power when demand is high. Electric co-generation is enjoying a come-back. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

More and mores states are establishing a “renewable energy standard”
for their electric utilities. So far, wind power is producing the bulk
of renewable energy. But there are other sources. Some are brand new.
Others have been around for a long time. Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

More and mores states are establishing a “renewable energy standard”
for their electric utilities. So far, wind power is producing the bulk
of renewable energy. But there are other sources. Some are brand new.
Others have been around for a long time. Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The first thing to know about electricity is that making it can be
incredibly inefficient.


In a conventional power plant, burning fuel turns water into steam.
The steam drives a turbine, which spins the generator. Only about a
third of the energy in the original fuel is converted to electricity.
Two thirds goes up the smokestack in the form of heat.


“Every time you convert energy from one form to another, you lose
something. That’s just the way it is, ’cause nothing’s perfect.”


Dwight Anderson works for Minnesota Power. He’s lived with that
inefficiency for his whole working life. Now, he’s trying to wring
more electric power out of every bit of fuel.


He’s high on something called co-generation. The basic idea is to
harness the heat or steam that normally goes up the smokestack.
There’s a good example of co-generation at the Sappi paper mill in
Cloquet, in northern Minnesota. Like many paper mills, Sappi makes
most of the electricity it needs.


Engineering Manager Rick Morgan points to a mountain of wood chips:


“We have about 20,000 tons of biomass stored.”


That’ll last less than a month. The plant uses 53,000 watts, enough to
power a small city.


Inside the sprawling buildings, there are several electric generators.
One of them is fueled by a recovery boiler, which burns the byproducts
of the paper-making process, to run steam through a turbine.


“…The actual turbine is manufactured in Czechoslovakia and the generator’s
made in Vestros, Sweden.”


Higher pressure steam spins the turbine to produce electricity. The
waste steam from the same boiler goes to the pulp dryer, the paper
machines, and other parts of the process.


Back in his office, Rick Morgan says energy is the fourth largest
expense for paper mills:


“If you can’t control energy costs in this business, you can’t be in
business.”


The main product here is paper, but sometimes Sappi sells electricity
too. That happened during a recent cold snap:


“The electric demand increases and the costs go higher and higher, to
the point that it’s financially feasible for us to generate power for
Minnesota Power.”


Opportunities to produce electricity turn up in some surprising places.
Like along natural gas pipelines. The pressure has to be boosted
periodically as the gas travels through the pipe. Compressors fueled
by the natural gas do that work, and normally they vent off waste heat.


But now in South Dakota, the waste heat is fueling small power plants.
They look like the barns and silos of a farm. The generator itself is
about the size of a truck.


Basin Electric Power Coop spokesman Daryl Hill says the plants are
owned and operated by an Israeli company, and the co-op buys the power:


“We get basically 22 megawatts of baseload for little investment.”


Other countries are leading in these approaches because their fuel
prices have been so high. As prices go up in the U.S., power producers
are finding ways to use more efficient technologies, and they’re
returning to old-fashioned ideas like combined heat and power. This is
a form of co-generation that was once common across the country.


A central electric plant uses its waste steam to heat buildings. Of
course, most people don’t want to live next to a coal-fired power
plant. But Neal Elliott, with the American Council for an Energy-
Efficient Economy, says with combined heat and power, cleaner fuels,
like natural gas, can become competitive:


“Use natural gas, but use it much more efficiently. And instead of
throwing more than half of the fuel value away, let’s do it with co-
gen.”


Elliott says combined heat and power and other forms of co-generation
could provide 20% of America’s electricity needs, and save on heating
fuel at the same time. And he says recovered energy generation like
along the natural gas pipelines could provide another 20%.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

The Price of Global Warming

  • Some industries are working with government to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions. People who are worried about their personal CO2 emissions can buy carbon offsets, but there are dozens of programs, making it confusing. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s evidence that the Earth is changing
because of global warming. Glaciers are receding.
Polar ice caps are melting. Weather patterns are
altered. That’s prompted some people to look
for ways to reduce their personal contribution to
global warming. Rebecca Williams reports there
are many new companies that claim to help you do
that… for a price:

Transcript

There’s evidence that the Earth is changing
because of global warming. Glaciers are receding.
Polar ice caps are melting. Weather patterns are
altered. That’s prompted some people to look
for ways to reduce their personal contribution to
global warming. Rebecca Williams reports there
are many new companies that claim to help you do
that… for a price:


Whenever you drive, fly, or ride, you’re emitting carbon dioxide. And it’s not just the way you get around. It’s also any time you turn on lights or plug into an electrical outlet. More than half of the electricity in the U.S. comes from power plants that burn
coal and that’s another major source of carbon dioxide.


It’s a problem because carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas.
The vast majority of scientists agree all this carbon dioxide
that people produce is trapping heat in the atmosphere and making
the planet warmer.


David Archer is a climate scientist at the University of Chicago:


“The problem with fossil fuels is that the cost of that climate
change isn’t paid by the person who makes the decision to use
fossil energy so it’s sort of like a bill we’re leaving to future
generations.”


Some people say there’s a way to pay that bill now. About three
dozen companies and nonprofits have sprung up in the past few
years. They’re selling carbon offsets.


The idea of a carbon offset is to balance out the carbon dioxide
that you emit. In theory, you can do this by investing in
something like tree planting or energy projects that don’t emit
greenhouse gasses, such as wind or solar power.


First, you can go to one of the group’s websites and calculate
your carbon footprint. That’s all the carbon dioxide you produce
by driving, flying, and so on, in a year. North Americans have
especially big footprints.


The companies assign a price per ton of carbon that’s emitted.
You can decide how much of your carbon-emitting you want to
balance out. Then you type in your credit card number and voila… no more guilt.


Well, that’s the idea anyway.


But what if you buy a carbon offset
but you don’t change your behavior? If you keep driving and
flying and using electricity just as much as before, or maybe
more than before, you’re still a part of the problem.


“You’re absolutely still emitting the carbon. The idea is that
you’re balancing it out through reductions elsewhere.”


Tom Arnold is a cofounder of Terrapass. It’s a carbon offset
company:


“Now this isn’t the optimal solution of course – you should stop
driving. But it’s a good way that we can get you involved in the
dialogue and help you reduce emissions somewhere else.”


And you can get a little sticker for your car to show you’re in
the offsetting club. But Tom Arnold admits there aren’t a whole
lot of drivers of huge SUVs buying offsets.


“We have this nice little SUV sticker – it’s pretty expensive and
a horrible seller. Most of our members already drive passenger
cars, very efficient cars. They’re just looking for a tool to
balance the rest of their impact out to zero.”


Erasing your carbon footprint sounds pretty positive, but there
are quite a few critics of the carbon offset industry. They
point out there aren’t any agreed-on standards for what an offset
is, and prices are all over the map. So it’s not always clear
what you’re getting for your money.


Mark Trexler is president of Trexler Climate and Energy Services.
He’s a consultant who reviews the groups selling carbon offsets.
He says you do have to ask questions about what you’re buying:


“Am I putting my money into something that wouldn’t have happened
anyway? Because if somebody would’ve built that windmill anyway
or if they would’ve done whatever it is you’re putting money into
anyway, you’re really not rendering yourself climate neutral.”


Trexler says there are certification programs in the works so
consumers can know more about what they’re buying. But the people
who are buying offsets now say it feels like they’re making a
difference.


Kate Madigan bought offsets. She started thinking about it when
she was awake at night worrying about the world her new baby
would live in:


“Some people say oh, global warming, it’s going to change the
world in 100 years, but I’ll be gone by then. But I think that’s
a horrible way to look at things because we’re leaving the world
to a lot of people that we love.”


Madigan says she doesn’t think carbon offsets alone will really
solve the problem. She says she thinks it’ll take a lot of
harder choices too, like driving less and using less electricity.


Supporters say that’s the real power of offsets. It’s getting
people to talk about the role they play in global warming.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Windmills Generate Jobs and Power

  • A windmill blade nearly 150 feet long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

U.S. demand for clean energy is growing fast. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they’re running into a supply problem. Windmill manufacturers overseas have been shipping their products to the booming U.S. market. That’s already created some jobs, and now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills here. It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

U.S. demand for clean energy is growing fast. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they’re running into a supply problem. Windmill manufacturers overseas have been shipping their products to the booming U.S. market. That’s already created some jobs, and now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills here. It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. Stephanie Hemphill reports:


At the Duluth Port Terminal, the BBC India is tied up to the dock. Two giant cranes slowly lower a silvery propeller onto a waiting truck. The blade is half as long as a football field. The extended bed of the eighteen-wheeler isn’t long enough to hold the entire length. A padded steel structure cradles the narrow end above the ground. There are 66 blades on the ship, three blades for each of twenty-two towers.


“The three blades will bolt into a hub, and then the hub attaches to the nacelle, the generator package, that’s the actual turbine, and the nacelle sits on top of the tower.”


Andrew Holdrup is the port captain for the shipping company. He was here in Duluth a year and a half ago, when the port handled its first ever shipment of windmills.


Holdrup says the demand for windmills is huge in the U.S.


“We have four ships; all they do is run from Denmark to Houston with Siemens windmills. We discharge them in Houston, the ship sails back empty to go pick up the next lot. Multiply that by all the other ports, and all the other windmill manufacturers, and it’s a huge business.”


It’s great business for Duluth’s port. Unloading the windmills requires iron workers to cut the steel where the pieces have been welded to the ship, and crane operators, and longshoremen. And truckers are staying in town waiting to pick up their loads. They’ll haul the windmills to wind farms being built in Mower County, Minnesota, and Oliver County, North Dakota. The port has also handled equipment for wind farms in Manitoba.


The boom in wind was primed in the early 1990s, when Congress set up a production tax credit for wind power. It allows a 1.9 cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit over ten years, for electricity produced by wind.


But the tax credit only runs for two years at a time. Ron Johnson is in charge of marketing for the Duluth Port Authority. He says that on-again, off-again approach has made it hard for businesses involved in wind energy to plan and grow.


“It’s kind of start up again, stop, start up again, stop. If you’re a trucking company with these specialized trailers, you don’t want to go out and buy fifty more of them if there’s a chance your whole fleet’s going to sit until Congress decides what to do.”


Johnson says there’s a lot of support in Congress for the tax credits, and he expects them to be renewed.


Steve Stengel works for FPL Energy, the company building the wind farms where these windmills are headed.


“It is part of the business, we understand that. And it does cause kind of starts & stops, if you will.”


But he says it’s possible to work around the periodic breaks in the tax credit because it takes a long time to plan a wind project anyway.


“Permitting issues, land lease issues, transmission issues. We have to plan as if the tax credit is going to be there.”


In fact, wind is growing dramatically in spite of the iffy nature of federal support. Several states now require utilities to invest in renewable energy, or offer incentives for wind power development. And as the cost of fossil fuels goes up, the relative cost of wind goes down.


It all adds up to a lot of demand, and recently, tight supplies.


The American Wind Energy Association’s Susan Sloan says orders are already in place for 2008 and beyond.


“Because of this boom and bust cycle but also because of this new acceptance of wind, we are seeing a tighter supply, and we need to have the manufacturing capabilities catch up.”


And that’s what’s happening.


It took two weeks for the Siemens windmills to sail from Denmark to Duluth. Now the company is building a factory in Fort Madison, Iowa. Siemens says it will employ 250 people, and start producing in the first half of 2007.


And in Pipestone, Minnesota, Suzlon, a company based in India, is about to start producing three blades a day, and the nosecones to go with them. The company plans to manufacture the electronic controls, and eventually employ up to 300 people. Suzlon says it has orders for the next two to three years.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Windmills Generate Jobs and Power (Wrap)

  • A windmill blade nearly 150 long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

US demand for clean energy is growing so fast, supplies of generating systems are getting tight. Stephanie Hemphill reports on a challenge that could lead to more jobs in the US:

Transcript

US demand for clean energy is growing so fast, supplies of generating systems are getting tight. Stephanie Hemphill reports on a challenge that could lead to more jobs in the US:


Overseas manufacturers of wind generating systems are shipping them here as fast as they can. Now, several companies are building wind generator factories in the US.


Siemens is building a plant in Iowa. Suzlon is about to start production in Minnesota. Plants in Texas produce blades and towers.


It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. A production tax credit is in place, but it expires every two years.


Ron Johnson is with the port of Duluth, which handles windmill imports. He says the on-again, off-again support makes it hard for companies to plan and grow.


“Well, the deadline’s coming at the end of next year, and people are planning their projects, so we’re all anxious to see what Congress does.”


The American Wind Energy Association says producers are installing enough wind power this year to power the entire state of Rhode Island.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Pros and Cons of Offshore Wind Farms

  • While the tower is around 3 miles north of Cleveland's shore, a viable wind farm would need to be at least 6 times farther out in Lake Erie. The wind monitoring tower measures the speed, direction, and height of Lake Erie's wind to determine if wind power generation on the lake is economically viable. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Proposals for offshore wind farms, from the coasts of Texas to New England have the potential to generate more electricity than land turbines do. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports these projects face various hurdles to becoming reality, but they’re not completely insurmountable:

Transcript

Proposals for offshore wind farms, from the coasts of Texas to New England have the potential to generate more electricity than land turbines do. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports these projects face various hurdles to becoming reality but they’re not completely insurmountable:


Over the past few months, whenever the weather is favorable, Aaron Godwin of Green Energy Ohio rides a power boat several miles out into Lake Erie. Out on the on the city of Cleveland’s century old water intake structure he’s built a tall wind monitoring tower.


“The upper part of the tower is about 168 feet above the water, so we’re measuring at about 30, 40 and 50 meters, and dual instrumentation at each level, anemometers that measure wind speed and vanes that measure direction.”


Godwin’s got almost a year of wind data and today he’s installing a small wind turbine to confirm what he’s discovered: that the lake’s wind is roughly twice as strong as wind on land. So to Godwin offshore wind farms are inevitable, especially since 75 percent of the nation’s energy use is near coastal cities.


However, proposed projects everywhere face a number of hurdles. One of them is bird and bat migration. Some land turbines have killed creatures that flew too close. But in Denmark, where offshore wind is 15 years old, extensive water foul surveys show little change in bird behavior. Charlotte Boesen is an environmental planner for Dong Energy in Denmark.


“These birds, they do fly around the wind farm. They do not like flying over land you can say and maybe they in some sort they perceive the turbines or wind farm as a similar object.”


Even so, no wind project in the US will ever get off the ground without a full assessment of potential wildlife impacts. That’s why 60% of Lake Erie has already been ruled out by a preliminary study conducted by the wind consulting firm AWS True Wind. Its Executive Director Bruce Bailey says that leaves most of eastern Lake Erie still available, with the best wind about 15 miles northwest of Cleveland.


“That’s where the strongest winds would be found. With water depths still being under say 70 feet.”


Bailey adds the shallow depth of Lake Erie combined with its solid lake bottom and fresh water makes it more friendly to offshore wind generation than oceans.


“You wouldn’t have to deal with the corrosion or the extra cost to safeguard your hardware from corrosion if you’re sighted in a fresh water lake.”


Bailey adds designing against hurricanes makes ocean projects more expensive. On the flip side, Lake Erie’s been known to freeze.


“There are ways to deflect the ice from actually pushing too strongly against or lifting out a turbine foundation. Some of them have already been deployed already in offshore projects in Northern Europe, and some of them are located in locations where you might even get icebergs.”


Another concern is whether these turbines will ruin the natural beauty of America’s Coastlines, even though on the horizon a turbine might only look a big as a thumbnail. Walt Musel of the US Department of Energy says this worry is unfounded.


“It’s worth noting there are no projects in the United States, so most people who object to offshore wind have never seen one.”


Fifteen years ago, projects in Denmark faced the same prejudice. Today tourists rent boats to go see them.


Above all, perhaps the largest impediment to offshore wind power is its high cost. Installation in water is expected to be double the cost of on land construction. However, once farms are producing power, electricity companies are open to buying it.


Out on Lake Erie, Aaron Godwin is packing up his tools for the day. He says there is an up side to those high capital costs. He says in the future, turbines will be so large it’ll make more sense to manufacture the parts locally, giving America’s manufacturing industry a ray of hope.


“Energy is a guaranteed growth market. Wind power is the fastest growing energy sector in the entire world. Why would you not want to get involved in that guaranteed growth market? It just does not make sense.”


Godwin says if the US can clear these hurdles of public perception, engineering, and environmental impacts, he thinks the US economy might find a pleasant surprise: consistent, green energy, built and harnessed off the blue coasts of America.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

Untapped Power in Offshore Wind Turbines?

  • Developers want to put wind turbines in offshore locations like Lake Ontario and off the coast of Massachusetts. (Photo by David Orsborne)

The U.S. Department of Energy wants 20 percent of the country’s electricity supply to eventually come from wind power. Some of that power could come from wind turbines located on the water. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports some power companies are hesitating:

Transcript

The U.S. Department of Energy wants 20 percent of the country’s
electricity supply to eventually come from wind power. Some of that
power could come from wind turbines located on the water. The
GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports some power companies are hesitating:


Until recently, the strength of the wind on the water was mainly of
interest to the shipping industry, anglers, and to people who like
to sail.


(Sound of sail ruffling and folding)


Lee Konczak is folding up the sail on a small sailboat that he often
takes out into Lake Michigan. Konczak says he likes the serenity of
riding on the wind and the beautiful view from offshore. Even so, he
says he wouldn’t mind if the view included a few wind turbines:


“With energy certainly being at the top of the news practically on a
daily basis right now, and with limited resources, I think an
experimental kind of thing with wind turbines would be excellent.”


Some wind power companies are planning more than a small
experiment. An effort is underway to put up 140 wind turbines in Lake
Ontario and another developer wants a wind farm off the coast of
Massachusetts. The industry would like to develop more projects. It
says the US is behind some European countries when it comes to
going offshore for wind. Compared to the US, European countries are
short on fossil fuel supplies and they don’t have as much land. So
they began placing turbines offshore a few years ago.


John Dunlop is with the American Wind Energy Association. He says the land-based
wind turbines in the US and Canada are important but often trigger local
disputes over new overhead transmission lines. Dunlop says lake-based
wind turbines would avoid some political squabbles by being close to
many cities:


“We enjoy living next to water, so consequently our population centers
tend to be close to the water which means a lake-based installation
may be no more than 10-20 miles away from that load center. Now, to get
that energy, that electricity from that wind project back to the city
you do need to have underwater cabling, but that’s a fairly common
technology so that’s not a huge impediment or a huge cost.”


Several environmental groups are getting on board with the idea of
putting wind farms in waterways. Charlie Higley is with the Citizens’
Utility Board in Wisconsin. He says there are already many coal and
nuclear plants near the water:


“Both of those have huge environmental and economic costs
associated with them, so we’re supportive of the development of
wind, not only on land but we really think the time is now to
start looking at developing wind resources on Lake Michigan.”


Higley acknowledges some people may not like the look of wind
turbines if they’re installed within view of the shoreline. Other
supporters concede there also needs to be more study of wind speeds
over the water. They also say there needs to be a cheaper way to fix
turbines that break down in waters dozens of feet deep.


Walt Musial helps oversee offshore wind projects at the National Renewable Energy
Lab. He says getting to a turbine in water is no easy task:


“You can’t drive a truck, so you have to drive a boat, or perhaps a helicopter like they do
in Europe. These add costs as well, and so these methods of accessing turbines have to be
developed and minimized.”


Still, Musial says because the Energy Department’s long-term goal is
to promote more wind production, he predicts some of that wind power
will come from offshore. But for now, the uncertainties have many
power companies rooted in inland turbines.


Kim Zuhlke is with Alliant Energy. He says his firm prefers a place
like Iowa, where there are already 800 wind turbines and a
desire from public officials to have more:


“You couple the acceptance, the economic growth, existing
transmission, all of those things together make it a logical place
for us to go.”


Still, Zuhlke says offshore wind turbines in the U.S. may become
a reality. He says engineers have to perfect a turbine that provides a big
enough payback for the additional expense of putting something way out in
the water.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

Related Links

Oil Companies, Enviros Team Up for Renewable Energy

Oil companies and environmental groups are working together to press the Canadian government to support renewable energy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly has more:

Transcript

Oil companies and environmental groups are working together to press the Canadian government
to support renewable energy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly has more:


It’s not often that an environmental group like Pollution Probe finds itself in the same camp as
companies like Shell Canada and Suncor Energy. But they agree on one thing: Canada is lagging
behind other developed countries in its financial support for renewable energy projects.


Diane Humphries is with the oil company Suncorp.
The company’s investing in wind power.


But electricity is so cheap in Canada, Humphries says such projects need government help to
make them affordable.


“Canadians are enjoying least cost electricity… We need additional incentives to be put in place to
match, or become more competitive with the current price of electricity.”


Humphries believes the combined voices of environmentalists and business people will convince
the federal government to increase its investment.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

Enviro Groups Concerned About Blackout Aftermath

Some environmentalists are concerned that the blackout that affected the Northeast and part of Canada might be used as an excuse to build more power plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some environmentalists are concerned that the blackout that affected the Northeast
and part of
Canada might be used as an excuse to build more power plants. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Experts don’t yet know all the factors that led to the power blackout. But
environmentalists
worry that private interests will take advantage of the situation and call for more
large nuclear and
coal-burning power plants. David Gard is with the Michigan Environmental Council.


“Clearly we know, experts have already said even though we don’t know the exact
cause of the
problem, we know for sure that it’s not an issue of not enough generation. We have
plenty of
power plants; we have plenty of supply. This is primarily a problem with
transmission and
getting energy that’s already been made to the end customer.”


Environmentalists say fixing the transmission bottle-necks, building a more diverse
system with
wind and solar power generation and real conservation measures such as more
efficient air
conditioners are better solutions than building big generating plants that pollute.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.