Lake area positioned well for wind power
Meeting highlights rising energy source
By John F. Bonfatti
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 05/07/08 6:40 AM
President Bush said in his 2006 State of the Union speech that the country could meet 20 percent of its electricity needs in 2030 through wind power.
Right now, wind power accounts for just under 1.5 percent of that need.
The difference between those numbers probably explains why organizers were wondering whether they had enough information packets for all the people attending the first meeting of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative in the Hyatt Regency Buffalo on Tuesday.
Several hundred people — advocates, businesspeople, government representatives, scientists and others — crowded into a meeting room to be briefed on what is a rapidly expanding form of power generation.
While wind power currently meets a fraction of the country’s energy needs, that is certain to change as governments look to replace power plants that burn carbon-based fuels linked to global warming with cleaner, renewable energy sources.
Wind power, advocates say, will be a part of that. It has none of the emissions issues of coal-and oil-fired power plants. Almost as important, wind turbines do not require the massive amounts of water needed to cool more traditional power plants.
Buffalo, Western New York and the Great Lakes in general are in a good position to capture these “winds of change,” as several speakers called them.
“This region has a tremendous capacity to be a source of wind energy,” said Tim A. Eder, executive director of the event’s sponsors, the Great Lakes Commission, a coali-
tion comprising the eight states bordering the lakes and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
Existing wind mapping models show many areas along and in the lakes have very good promise for wind generation.
But those models may actually understate that potential, according to Larry Flowers, a wind power expert with the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Wind Technology Center.
The models were developed to predict wind speeds relatively low to the ground. Flowers said actual studies of wind patterns higher up in other parts of the country indicate a much more robust resource is available. “We don’t trust the models unless we have validated them,” he said.
So the government will soon begin a study around the Great Lakes to get actual data from those higher elevations, Flowers said. The numbers obtained from the study, which Flowers said would cost several million dollars, will provide more information for those looking to site wind farms.
The environment may be driving the move toward wind power, but proponents say there is significant economic potential from the push as well.
Flowers said estimates put the economic value of the wind industry, which includes payments to landowners, property tax revenue and construction and operating jobs, at about $79 billion if the vision outlined by Bush is achieved.
Additionally, advocates say those making the turbines and towers will want to be closer to their markets to cut down the hefty expense of shipping components from far away. That could translate into manufacturing jobs.
