Ohio To Spearhead First Great Lakes Off-Shore Wind Power Project

Earlier this month the Cleveland-based company, Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) announced plans to begin construction of the first ever offshore wind farm in the Great Lakes. The 20 megawatt project is expected to cost upwards of $100 million but will hopefully spur massive growth in the domestic wind energy industry as well as drastically cut CO2 emissions and Water consumption associated with currently operating power plants in the great lakes region.

According to an article by SolveClimate News:

(this pilot wind project) could reach a power purchase agreement with utilities within a month. Energy from the project could supply around 16,000 homes with electricity...

...In a 2010 report, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory said the average wind speed in the Great Lakes is between 17.9 and 20.1 miles per hour, a few miles per hour less than the mighty winds off the northern Atlantic coast. At speeds above 15.6 mph, Ohio, for instance, has 46 gigawatts of wind potential, while New York and Michigan have a respective 147 gigawatts and 483 gigawatts...

..Current electricity generation in the region is roughly 100 gigawatts, estimates say...

...According to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project, CO2 emissions from power plants in the eight Great Lakes states totaled an estimated 679 million tons in 2010, nearly 30 percent of the U.S. total for that year.
"Our commitment to renewable energy in the Great Lakes would take a huge bite out of carbon dioxide emissions across the world," said Terry Yonker, co-chair of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative (GLWC) and president of environmental consulting firm Marine Services Diversified.

What the article seems to overlook is the massive water savings that will be made possible by this pilot project. Wind Power is, by far, the least water consumptive source of electricity available (consuming approximately only one thousandth of a gallon of water for every kilowatt of electricity produced). If this pilot project were to successfully spurs a widespread transition from traditional thermoelectric power (consuming approximately one half of a gallon of water for every kilowatt of electricity produced)to offshore wind in the eight Great Lakes States, the total amount of freshwater consumed for electricity production in the region will drop by a very significant amount.

To read the entire SolvClimate News article, click here. To learn more about the Water-Energy Nexus and the direct connections between water and energy, click here.