The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

ELPC News: Gov. Blagojevich Announces RPS Plan

Dear Daniel Stafford,

Great news! Last Thursday, in his State of the State speech, Illinois Governor Blagojevich announced a renewable energy development plan that will make Illinois a national renewable energy leader. The plan calls for 3,000 megawatts of new "green power," mostly wind power, by 2012. This is enough to power one million homes and is expected to create 3,000 construction jobs.

If you go to ELPC's website at www.elpc.org and click on (QuickTime video or MPEG video) in the lead story, you can watch the one-minute excerpt from Governor Blagojevich's speech in which he announces the plan, and you can read ELPC's press release commending Governor Blagojevich on this important announcement.

The Governor will be going to the Illinois Commerce Commission later this week and asking them to move this quickly. He will also try to use state financing authority to support building the largest wind farm in the world, a 432-megawatt project near Bloomington, Illinois.

If implemented, the Governor's plan would make Illinois the second biggest wind power state in the country by 2012. That is a climate change solution and positive alternative in the Midwest coal heartland.

We applaud Governor Blagojevich for this clean energy initiative. Wind power is good for jobs, good for rural economic development and good for the environment. This is a key pro-environmental step that will create good new jobs and spur rural economic development in some of the places in Illinois that need it most.

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.

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Side Bar Links

Illinois Renewable Energy Association site

---------------
The AWEA's annual expo:
Global WINDPOWER 2004
McCormick Place
Chicago, Illinois, USA
March 28-31, 2004

I was there...
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Dan Stafford - Publisher
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Safe, healthy, good for the economy, good for the environment, good for farmers, good for you, and just downright good produce:

State-by-state directory of farmers' markets

I strongly encourage those seriously interested in learning about the technology, players, politics, and issues of Wind Energy to spend time browsing the American Wind Energy Association website. They are the premier industry trade organization and have extensive resources available.
(www.awea.org)

Alpha Solar
Clean energy generation systems for off-grid living and environmental impact reduction.

The Great Lakes Information Network:

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The Distributed Resources & Green Power weBlog by Bruce Irving

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine,
P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit your question at www.emagazine.com;
or e-mail Earth Talk at earthtalk@emagazine.com.

OTEC News weBlog: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

The Green Ocean Project: Using solar energy to distill water for agriculture.

Other weBlogs by Daniel Stafford:

The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

*Spell Book*

Affirmation Station

Remembering Mom

Save Hotel Baker

Uncle Harold's Farm

The First Church of Healing The Earth

The Empty Hand

Why I Publish This Blog:

"One thing that many people do not realize is that states like Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana,
and Michigan are sitting on a gold mine of wind energy potential. Or, more properly, next to the mine.
The Great Lakes are probably the area in the USA with the third largest inland wind energy potential.
Think of just the nickname for Chicago. "The Windy City". Milwaukee is even windier, I can tell you.
Why? Because they sit on the edge of a great flat area where there is both a land-water temperature
differential, and a large flat expanse of water that is comparably shallow.
Oilrigs certainly operate in deeper waters. And you won't have to construct transmission lines all the
way from the plains of Montana to put it to use.

The Great Lakes area has an opportunity to get the jump on wind energy's future, if that fact is
recognized and exploited. Wind energy means jobs for construction and maintenance workers, thousands
of them. Wind energy means leasing rights and extra money for family farmers struggling to make it on
agriculture alone. In most cases farmers can grow crops right up to the base of a windmill. The land
footprint has a small impact on total farm acreage. Wind energy also means freedom from fluctuating
fuel prices. Wind is free. The cost of a barrel of polluting oil can be raised or lowered drastically
based on fears or political whims. The potential gains are enormous. We've all seen the flow of good
manufacturing jobs out of the area. Well, they can't tell the wind to blow in another country so it's
more "convenient" or cheaper to produce. The wind is perfectly happy to whip up opportunities for us
right around here. Most of all, because we here in the Great Lakes region have the potential to have
a huge positive impact on U.S. energy industry emissions' contribution to global warming."