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Offshore wind energy faces setbacks in Great Lakes

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Julie Grant   Cleveland Ohio  July 04, 2014

The U.S. doesn’t yet generate one watt of energy from commercial offshore wind.

A few years ago, it looked like the Great Lakes might lead the nation. Pennsylvania was among a handful of states working with federal agencies to speed up the process.

As recently as this spring, construction of a wind farm in Lake Erie, off the Ohio shoreline near Cleveland, looked promising. But now, there’s doubt there will be any wind development in the Great Lakes.

The idea for building a wind farm in Lake Erie near Cleveland was hatched ten years ago. Wind energy developer Lorry Wagner says leaders started looking toward the energy sector to create more jobs. That’s when they realized the region’s potential for offshore wind energy.

“The real resource is in the Lake. And the reason for that is you get about three times the energy due to the higher wind speeds and less turbulence than you do on land.”

The Department of Energy estimates the country has an offshore wind capacity of 4 million megawatts. That’s four times the generating capacity of all U.S. electric power plants.

Wagner is president of the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation, a non-profit known as LEED Co.

They started developing a pilot project, to build a wind farm out in the lake. Other Great Lakes states were also moving forward with offshore wind. In 2012, Pennsylvania, Michigan and others negotiated with federal agencies to streamline the permitting process. A proposed wind farm in Nantucket Sound called Cape Wind was mired in lawsuits, and it looked like the Great Lakes might be the nation’s first region to get a project in the water.

And LEED Co.’s wind farm was in line to be that project. LEED Co was in the running for a $47 million grant from the Department of Energy to get things started.

Standing on the Cleveland pier in late April, LEED Co spokesman Eric Ritter pointed out into the Lake, at where they plan to build six turbines. Each would be taller than the Statue of Liberty. Ritter was confident LEED Co. would win.

“We’re anticipating good news in couple of weeks.”

But they didn’t get good news. Last month, the Department of Energy granted the money to off-shore wind projects on the east and west coasts.  Read rest of article here.

 

Destruction from turbines, fighting big wind., Health, How to Fight Big Wind..., Noise

Wind Turbine Noise – The Landscape is Changing

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Windfarm noise: state of play

DateDec 6, 2013 CategoryBishop Hill

Via Angela Kelly comes this message from acoustician Mike Stigwood, who sets out the state of play on excess AM noise from windfarms. It looks like surrender from the developers.

Recent research presented at three planning inquiries that were conducted in September, October and November (Starbold, Bryn Lleweln and Shipdham – decisions awaited)  have hopefully exposed the misconceived arguments made by the industry’s acousticians, which have successfully avoided controls over wind farm noise impact for many years.

After more than 4 years of smoke screens, obfuscation and erroneous objections raising unrealistic concerns and placing barriers in the way of necessary controls over the wind farm noise called “Excess Amplitude Modulation”, industry acousticians have finally admitted a planning condition is “necessary” and “reasonable”.  Excess AM is now shown to be neither rare nor only causing minor effects as claimed over the last few years, arguments that have successfully blocked planning controls leaving many communities exposed to serious noise impact.  Research by ourselves and the Japanese have exposed this as a common and serious problem.  Read rest of article here.

And a link to a company that is studying wind turbine noise:

MAS Enviromental Health Consultancy

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Destruction from turbines, harm to wildlife

Threat of bat fatalities stalls Maine wind project

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By RACHEL OHM Morning Sentinel

BINGHAM — The review of a proposed 62-turbine wind farm project in this Somerset County town has been put on hold in part because of concerns about  the danger the turbines might pose to bats being threatened by white-nose syndrome, a rapidly spreading fungal disease.

Little brown bats (pictured here) and northern long-eared bats are currently being evaluated for listing under the Maine Endangered Species Act and also the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

There is no estimated date for when the Bingham wind project might be approved by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Dan Courtemanch, project manager for the agency’s Division of Land Resource Regulation, said Monday. A decision was originally expected this month, he said.

Read rest of article here.

 

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