lost_patrol wrote:
... it's the perspective that is missing when we read posts from Gore/Suzuki acolytes. We also need the perspective of engineers active in the energy field.
The push for wind power in the Great Lakes is not coming from Gore/Suzuki acolytes (so far as I can tell), but from those in the energy, engineering, and environmental science fields who have looked at research in Denmark, Sweden, UK, Netherlands and Ireland (where they have offshore wind farms), and see a great deal of promise for low cost, clean, and reliable energy in the Great Lakes. Some of these studies are now decades old. Germany has nearly two dozen projects that are going on-line soon.
Cuyahoga County and Case Western Reserve (for Lake Erie) has one of the largest task forces to date (with a broad range of experts contributing to the research). And there are numerous pilot projects and feasibility studies throughout the Atlantic (Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island), and in many places
in the Great Lakes (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario). I know of several on the outskirts of Chicago and along the shore in Gary Indiana. We're hearing a lot about it now, because all this stuff is in the news and is percolating in the media, but it's been there for some time (chugging along while energy prices remained low). There are certainly plenty of sticking points, but they all appear to be trending in a particular direction at the moment, and draw on diverse perspectives from a broad cross-section of groups.
One has to wonder, a little bit, why the rest of the world has turned on to wind energy in increasing numbers as a normal response to energy prices, geopolitics, and public pressure for clean (non-polluting) energy, and North America has yet to build a single off shore wind farm. Are you suggesting it's because we know something in the U.S. and Canada that the rest of the world does not?