How much power can the United States get from having wind power on the great lakes?



  1. 0 Votes

    Right now there is a proposal to put a wind farm off shore in the Great Lakes. The wind farm would have 200 turbines, which would produce 1,000 megawatts. This is enough to power roughly 300,000 households. Despite this, building the wind farm has been met with a lot of opposition from people living in the Great Lakes region.

  2. 0 Votes

    The proposal that lkp360 is referring to, is the proposal from Scandia Wind Offshore (see link attached) – they are proposing to construct turbines on the West Michigan lakeshore.  However, the proposal is facing a lot of opposition.  According to the csmonitor website that lkp360 attached to their answer, the Pentwater Village Council in Michigan passed a resolution against the proposal on February 8, 2011 (see the protectwithwindpower link attached).  Scandia has not been clear as to whether they will allow “one dissenting entity” to change their minds about going through with the plan, but other Village Councils have made similar votes against wind power, mainly stating that they don’t want the turbines too close to residential areas, or being close enough to limit any potential for the towns to expand.  Considering that the Great Lakes have strong, consistent wind such setbacks are a disappointment for many who favor greener power initiatives.  The Great Lakes are connected to 8 different states directly, and therefore has the potential to provide wind power to 95 million people living around the Great Lakes alone.  Indirectly, the turbines could power an additional 20 states – about 126.5 million households in total according  The hold-up in wind development around the Great Lakes, and other areas in New England like Cape Cod (i.e. the Cape Wind project) is good news to coal, natural gas, and oil companies, as well as opposing politicians like Mitt Romney, who just declared his bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

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