PD: Lake Erie wind turbines will be built by 2017, says LEEDCo

[Kolesar]

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/08/lake_erie_wind_turbines_by_201.html

The project will create about 500 temporary jobs, but is the first step toward building hundreds, or even thousands, of turbines in the Lake.

The company is holding an open house from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Cleveland Convention Center, 300 Lakeside Ave. to unveil the details of its project "Icebreaker" and to ask consumers who support it to sign a "power pledge."

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Mayor Frank Jackson will talk about the pledge. LEEDCo president Lorry Wagner and others will give a detailed update.

LEEDCo is currently funded by a $4 million U.S. Department of Energy grant and is preparing to compete for a second grant, this one more than $46 million, to complete the project.

One can fill out a "power pledge pdf" : http://media.cleveland.com/business_impact/other/The%20Power%20Pledge%20Sheet.pdf

[liberal N proud]

1. Great news

I only hope that there is not a problem with this:


Although that does not happen very often.

[Kolesar]

2. Winds and currents cause the ice cover to pile up and bash into things

It destroyed the original fishing pier at Edgewater Park in Cleveland about 20 years ago. ODNR built a new pier with one huge conically shaped pier that has survived. I hope that the cables on the lake bottom are safe from ice dragging along the bottom. Ice had damaged telephone cables before.

[liberal N proud]

13. Are saying the wind turbines will cause the ice to push up on things?

[Kolesar]

15. No, the powerful winds will start the ice moving

There are also some other funny effects in the lake. Strong winds for several days will push the water to the east end and the level will rise by feet. There is also a seiche, when the lake goes into east west oscillations with a period of many hours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seiche

Small rhythmic seiches are almost always present on larger lakes. On the North American Great Lakes, seiche is often called slosh.[citation needed] It is always present, but is usually unnoticeable, except during periods of unusual calm. Harbours, bays, and estuaries are often prone to small seiches with amplitudes of a few centimeters and periods of a few minutes. Seiches can also form in semi-enclosed seas; the North Sea often experiences a lengthwise seiche with a period of about 36 hours.



The National Weather Service issues low water advisories for portions of the Great Lakes when seiches of 2 feet or greater are likely to occur.[6] Lake Erie is particularly prone to wind-caused seiches because of its shallowness and elongation. These can lead to extreme seiches of up to 5 m (16 feet) between the ends of the lake. The effect is similar to a storm surge like that caused by hurricanes along ocean coasts, but the seiche effect can cause oscillation back and forth across the lake for some time. In 1954, Hurricane Hazel piled up water along the northwestern Lake Ontario shoreline near Toronto, causing extensive flooding, and established a seiche that subsequently caused flooding along the south shore.

[TheDeputy]

12. Is that for-real!?!?!?!?

Incredible.

[liberal N proud]

14. The picture is real

Waves crashed against the lighthouse and froze covering it in ice.

[riqster]

3. That shore of Lake Erie does have challenging weather.

But there has been a wind plant a few hundred feet from the shoreline (next to the football stadium) for several years now, and it has functioned well.

[peace13]

5. I have no problem with putting them on shore.

People regard the water as free turf. Cities dump their sewage into it, drop their dirty air on it and now they want to litter it with turbines that can be built on land....at less expense. Go figure. Just who collects the rent from things built in the lake. Always...follow the money!

[peace13]

4. Seven to twenty miles offshore...really?

Look to the Canadian shore folks and you will see it lined with wind farms. Clean energy. The people there refused to litter the water with these things. As a sailor I see huge problems with these things being seven to twenty miles off shore. Are you kidding. People do actually navigate these waters.

To top it off we will get 1999 technology by 2017. This is so Ohio. There has been research in wind improvements but it looks like we will get the whirl-e gig.

Don't get me wrong, I think every new structure built should include some form of solar/ wind energy source. I also think that we need wind and solar energy farms. For goodness sake let's be smart about what we build and where we put it!

[Kolesar]

6. The wind is 17 mph at the shore and 23 mph in the middle of Lake Erie

According to the wind map released by NREL in 2007.

I think we are getting the best technology. The folks at GEO are very good.

[peace13]

7. Have you ever tried to navigate on Lake Erie?

Hmmmm. I wonder why the Canadians kept theirs on land? No I don't and I will tell you why. Because their citizens spoke up about it and petitioned it. There are enough obstruction on the lake already. My question stands..who profits for these things being plunked in the water?

[Kolesar]

8. Yes, and the Canadians kept their wind turbines on land because the technology has not been invented

...yet. The Danes have offshore turbines, but they are in salt water seas that don't get ice.

Ohioans can master this technology and then begin deploying them around the Great Lakes by the tens of thousands. Then we won't have to buy any more gas turbines.

[peace13]

9. Not true. Really not true!

Research Kingsville / Cedar Island about three maybe four years ago. They had this exact scenario. My friends live there and we visit regularly. Trust me, they moved the things back on the fields where only the corn has to navigate them. We toured the area just four weeks ago and are well aware of the politics involved.

Navigating around tens of thousands is not possible. Now I know you are kidding.

[Kolesar]

10. what's not true? eom

[peace13]

11. This...

Canadians kept their wind turbines on land because the technology has not been invented yet. that was the point of my post!