Michigan gets serious about offshore wind
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has put a temporary halt on coal plant development, wants to more seriously explore the use of alternative energy and conservation in the state, and more recently has indicated a strong interest in developing offshore wind farms in Lake Michigan. An advanced feed-in tariff for renewables is also on the table.
The motivation? Green jobs, green jobs, green jobs.
Last Friday, Granholm signed an executive order that created a Great Lakes Wind Council, essentially a 13-person panel of advisors who will “identify criteria that can be used to review applications for offshore wind development.”
The goal is to rule out locations where offshore wind farms wouldn’t make sense, and highlight areas that are favourable for development. The council will also develop rules to streamline the approvals process. Their full report to the governor is expected Sept. 1, 2009.
It should be pointed out that Ohio and Wisconsin are also moving swiftly to capture this opportunity. Ontario’s window of opportunity — its chance to establish a leadership position in lake-based offshore wind — is closing.
We’ll find out later this month, when the Ontario government tables its Green Energy Act, whether support for offshore wind is built into it.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
February 11th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I just recieved an EMail from elert energy about the high cost of sending midwest wind energy to the big cities along the East Coast. Living in Connecticut (not much usable wind), I would love to hear of a New England Atlantic Ocean Wind Council. According to wind maps there is plenty of wind from The Canadian coast line to Long Island.