The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Why Wind Turbines Are A Kick-Butt Benefit To The Great Lakes States And Should be Rigorously Pursued:

By Dan Stafford 01/23/2007

All, the story below has HUGE potential.

With the exodus of high-paying manufacturing jobs from the U.S., this is EXACTLY the kind of initiative and development effort we need in the Great Lakes region.

First of all, much of the prior manufacturing infrastructure in the area was old, dirty technologies and non-sustaianable industry. Obviously, since it left.

Renewable energy, on the other hand, is the utter definition of sustainability and PERMANENT job replacement. The wind is blowing all around here. You can't "offshore" where the wind blows. Additionally, there is clearly enough land-based and water based wind power potential to allow the Great Lakes region to EXPORT ELECTRICAL power all over the US and the Americas.

Add to this the fact that all of these installed turbines will need to be continuously maintained and periodically replaced, and you can see clearly that there will be quite a few jobs around the area repairing and replacing turbines as the wind power industry as a whole continues to experience massive growth of 25-35% annually world-wide.

It is even more essential that this area bust butt in attracting turbine manufacturing capacity. Every wind turbine manufacturer (utility-scale) in the world is currently backlogged by a YEAR OR MORE with orders, and supply is incapable of meeting demand.

Even better, land-based turbines pay our farmers lease monies while taking only a miniscule patch of total farmland out of production. Farmers in the vast majority of cases that host wind turbine leases can farm right up to a few feet from the base of the turbine tower.

Every aspect of this industry means more dollars coming INTO the local economy and less dollars leaving it. Every wind turbine made, installed, and maintained in this area means less oil and natural gas being shipped in. if we're using local wind instead of imported natural gas, we are not sending money out of the area for natural gas.

I have driven around this area extensively. I have been around rural Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. I am originally from Beloit, WI. I know first-hand what the effects of the loss of manufacturing jobs in the region has meant to smaller towns throughout the area. I have been through recessions in these towns. I have seen the small businesses closed up. I have seen boarded up houses and factories and schools. I have seen bridges and roads rusting and pitted. I have seen small towns looking like they are almost abandoned in some cases, and sorely lacking in repair and upkeep in others. I know exactly what it means to have flat wages for a decade plus while the cost of living nearly doubles. I know that the majority of people around this region outside the big cities are seeing desolation daily and struggling to find hope that they will ever have an income that will exceed their bills, let alone be able to provide a better life for their kids around here.

Renewable energy production and equipment manufacturing offers long-term hope and help, if we can change the way we do things.

We can exploit the heck out of wind and make the equipment to do it while HELPING the environment. Wind is actually more prevalent in winter when we need energy for heating our homes, too. We can make the equipment we need to do that.

We can exploit the sunshine in the summer when we need to keep cool. We can make the equipment to do that.

We can ferment the waste part of food crops and garbage to make fuel for our cars - WITHOUT taking food off tables, and we can make the equipment to do that.

We can make vastly cleaner diesel fuel out of vegetable oils pressed from the crops wastes before they're fermented, and use that in trucks, trains, buses, and ships, and make the equipment to do that.

We can make covered bicycle paths over city streets and train lines out of recycled plastics, and lessen the snow, ice and rain on our city streets, while making it possible to keep bicycle and moped traffic out of conflict with cars and safe year-round. We can tap snow plow drivers for the labor to build and maintain such bikeways in lieu of having them spreading chemicals on our streets that contaminate soil and groundwater. You could even have little mom-n-pop bicycle repair shops up there along the sides and sandwich shops and such. We could make all the equipment to do this, too.

Start making our own energy here at home in a big way, and using that energy very wisely so there is always some to sell elsewhere, and you will see VAST improvements in the fortunes of this area.

I, for one, am very tired of paying through the nose so that the nations of the Middle East can look down their noses at us while the oil companies and corporate CEO's make a few trillion dollars off of our misery and the whole area falls apart around us. I'm tired of seeing "Made in China" on everything I buy while I see farms and towns and factories right here at home rotting away and people going begging for jobs at Cheapmart and MacFatFoods, etc.

Our colleges and technical schools should be kicking into high gear with training and degree programs for renewable energy engineers, managers, and technicians. Local governments should be falling all over themselves to get manufacturers to move here or start up here. Job retraining programs should focus on renewable energy and sustainable industry, so that anyone on unemployment can spend at least two days a week training for these new industries and it counts toward their job-search requirements.

It is time to get up, dust ourselves off, stop taking it on the chin, and push back, hard. Renewable energy can be the big stick that lets us walk tall again.

We have big shoulders and big hearts. The Earth needs us, and we need each other to make this happen. We can all be superheroes and save the planet, literally, if we choose to. It is time for every State on the Lakes to join up and bypass the BS.

Dan Stafford