Ian and I

By Terry Yonker
Immediate Past Co-Chair, Great Lakes Wind Collaborative

Ian and I sat together, each observing the same glacial scene and coming to two separate conclusions:  climate change is a hoax and climate change is a reality.  We were amongst many other scientists and non scientists who traveled together to Antarctica in January on the Akademik Sergei Vovolov, a Russian Academy of Sciences research vessel.  Ian from Ontario and I from New York both observed calving glaciers and massive icebergs, expansive penguin and seabird colonies, breeching whales and predatory sea mammals, and a continent that is changing almost imperceptibly, but changing nevertheless.  Sea ice extent, krill populations that serve as the base of the Antarctic food chain, and glacial mass are all decreasing.  For those of us who were involved in research on Antarctica during the 1960’s, the changes are profound. Although what is happening in Antarctica parallels changes that are occurring here in the Great Lakes, the impacts of global warming on the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem climate differ in several major respects.

Rather than rising oceans, most scientists agree that water levels in the Great Lakes will decline, due to rising temperatures, increased evaporation, decreased ice cover, and shifts in the timing and amount of annual precipitation.  The implications of water level changes alone will impact hydroelectric power production, shipping tonnage through the St. Lawrence Seaway, flow over the Niagara Falls, and the biological productivity of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem.  Most impacts are expected to be negative.

Perhaps Ian and I had different perceptions of what we saw in Antarctica, but the reality is we must address changes in climate that are already occurring here at home.  What we do here to address the root causes of global warming will benefit the entire planet.  The future wellbeing of the penguins of Antarctica may depend on what we can accomplish a hemisphere away.

The 42 million people of the binational Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem are responsible for up to 15% of the world’s production of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas contributing to global warming and climate change.  And most of the CO2 increase comes from energy production, heating, and transportation that support a two trillion dollar economy, the world’s fourth largest behind the United States, China, and Japan.

Carbon dioxide emissions in the Great Lakes are being reduced by the introduction of new sources of renewable energy (wind and solar) and the reduction in the use of coal to produce electricity.  Ontario will shut down all its coal generators by 2014.  Three coal plants in western New York are likely to be mothballed.

The potential of wind power in the Great Lakes is ten times the 100 gigawatts of electricity that are required to maintain our regional economy and meet the needs of our citizens.  Electricity generated by wind turbines within a geographically diverse supergrid can replace all coal and natural gas generated baseload capacity when balanced by hydroelectric and pumped hydroelectric capacity.  The Niagara region of New York and Ontario, the western Great Lakes, and Quebec are blessed with renewable hydroelectric and pumped hydroelectric generating capacity.  The Great Lakes could and should serve as the energy hub and nerve center of a supergrid that serves the entire Great Lakes region and the Eastern Interconnect.

The Great Lakes Wind Collaborative has to date avoided a full blown debate about the important link between climate change in the Great Lakes and the need to transition to a renewable energy economy.  There is some underlying view that to discuss the shift to renewables and global warming in the same breath is somehow the kiss of death for the wind industry.  Wherever I have lectured on the subject of climate change in the Great Lakes, I have emphatically made the link and it has resonated with my audiences, regardless of their backgrounds.  There are the Ians who, whatever their motives or beliefs, will try to make the case that both renewable energy development and global warming mitigation are not economically feasible, that wind power cannot provide baseload capacity, and that humans have no role in causing global warming and climate change.  I think the stakeholders of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative understand the issues quite differently.  We need to separate myth from reality.  If we do that in assertive and positive ways, the case for mitigation of global warming and the deployment of wind power and other renewables is not a difficult case to make.

Terry L. Yonker, Immediate Past Co-chair, Great Lakes Wind Collaborative

Energy, Policy and Markets

By Charles McKeown

Office of the Hannah Professor in Land Policy, Agriculture, Food, and Resource Economics

Michigan State University

Electricity markets are strange things. In fact, they often don’t resemble markets much at all. The generation, transmission and delivery of electricity in the U.S. are highly regulated and subject to significant oversight from a true alphabet soup of agencies including: the federal Energy regulatory Commission (FERC), the Independent System Operators (ISO’s), state Public Service Commissions (PSC’s), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state environmental agencies (DNR’s, DEQ’s etc.) and the list goes on…. 

Why is all this government in a market? It is due to the fact that, to a large extent, the success of the U.S. economy is predicated on reliable, available, and inexpensive electricity. These goals are balanced against the climate crisis, the desire to reduce harmful emissions such as mercury (coal fired power plants are far and away the greatest source), sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides and other harmful emissions, the creation of economic development opportunities, and providing for U.S. energy security, and by extension, national security. When taken as a whole, understanding energy “markets” is akin to untying a Gordian Knot. None of it is simple, and anyone who says that is likely selling something. 

Electricity choices are long term (30 years or more for most baseload power plants) and expensive, regardless of the generation technology. These are the reasons that energy policy plays a key role in electricity technology development and deployment. The policy choices we make now have very lasting effects. Up until now, we have been largely reliant on fossil fuels to spin turbines to generate electricity. While nuclear and renewables are in the mix, coal is king, and energy policy has evolved to support the current mix of generation sources in the portfolio. 

Coal has largely powered the last 100 years of economic development in the U.S; however, newer imperatives have entered the energy policy arena, and our choices now need to be balanced against the next 100 years. The impending climate crisis and the emissions of carbon and other pollutants attendant to current generation technologies have spurred renewables to the forefront of the policy debate. That isn’t to say that current technologies won’t be part of the portfolio; they will be, and indeed, must be as there is no “silver Bullet” solution to our generation needs, but it does beg the need for low carbon, low cost energy sources like wind. Here is where policy becomes a vehicle for moving toward a more secure and sustainable energy portfolio; examples of such policy include Renewable Energy Standards, Feed in Tariffs, production incentives, and investment in technology R&D. 

The renewable energy policy front has been quiet as of late. With the recent high profile bankruptcy of Solyndra, the Keystone Pipeline decision, the current climate in Washington and a presidential race, the energy policy debate in the U.S. is at a low ebb. There has been a general acceptance that this congress will not be amenable to wind or other renewable energy legislation, and little activity has been observed on Capitol Hill. That seems to be changing.

·         On March 1^st the Senator Jeff Bingaman D-MN introduced the Clean Energy Standard Act of 2012. The bill calls for 80 percent of electricity in the US to come from low carbon sources by 2035. The technologies include wind, solar, biomass, nuclear, industrial co-generation (heat and power produced at the same time), coal with carbon sequestration and natural gas plants (partial credit).

·         Senator Debbie Stabenow, (D-Mich.), introduced an amendment to the transportation bill that would have extended the Production tax Credit for renewable energy - including wind power - for one year in addition to extending the popular grant in lieu of tax credit program – this was voted down. However two days later another a two year extension was proposed in the Senate by a bipartisan group including Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). Also in the US House, a bill seeking a similar extension has garnered 70 bipartisan co-sponsors.

·         At the state level, there are numerous ballot initiatives underway to increase the percentage of renewables like wind in the generation portfolio. In Michigan, for example, there is an initiative being mounted that would increase the mandate for renewable energy to 25% of the portfolio. 

While I’m not going to use this space to advocate for or against any policy, I will use it to encourage folks to understand why policy is an imperative in the energy arena. Further, it is important to understand why policy that is forward looking (remember we are stuck with our choices for at a least a generation), well informed and carefully constructed can lead to a more sustainable electricity supply, more job creation opportunities, less pollution, and lower carbon emissions simultaneously. Of course, a critical factor here is “well informed” policy, and by that I mean policy that is based on sound science, with a thorough understanding of the potential outcomes good and bad. This is where the value of organizations like the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative comes to the fore. By working with a broad base of experts, conducting high quality research and getting the knowledge generated in policy maker’s hands, the Collaborative serves a vital function. I encourage you to take the time to explore the website, read the reports, perhaps attend one of the meetings or conferences and gain a better understanding of the Collaborative and the issues that revolve around wind.

To know more about the GLWC, visit http://www.glc.org/energy/wind/

By John Sarver,

Chair of the Michigan Wind Working Group

100% Renewable Energy in Our Future?

The majority of states have Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), mandates requiring that a certain percentage of electricity come from renewable resources by a certain date. In 2008, Michigan enacted a 10% by 2015 RPS requirement. A ballot initiative is now underway to increase the RPS to 25% by 2025. This will resume the debate about what is feasible.

A recent World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report indicates we can get to 95% renewables by 2050. The report states that an ambitious energy efficiency program, in parallel with massive development of renewable energy, will result in such a global energy system by 2050. Energy will move towards a decentralized system using local renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal. In addition to massive investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, these approaches depend on the use of electric vehicles and a smart grid.

I remember a Solar Today article that described a 100% renewable future – the use of local, clean resources and elimination of the economic, security, and political problems from a dependence on foreign oil. I liked that future. Then, of course, we have climate change. Let’s assume all those scientists are wrong about climate change. So we make investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy and eliminate the risk of climate change, have cleaner air, and create millions of jobs. Sounds like a pretty good insurance policy to me.

But is this energy efficient and renewable energy future, even in 2050, realistic?  I believe the energy efficiency piece is very realistic, as demonstrated by numerous energy efficiency efforts during the past 35 years, and we have a variety of renewables (wind, solar, hydro, bioenergy, geothermal) to help us achieve a clean and renewable energy future. Wind is an abundant, cost effective resource in the Great Lakes region. Michigan has a generating capacity around 30,000 MW and studies have identified over 10,000 MW of potential onshore wind capacity and over 300,000 MW offshore capacity. The Great Lakes Wind Collaborative, Michigan Wind Working Group, and many other organizations are helping to develop the region’s wind energy resources in a responsible manner.

But will this cost too much and hurt our economy?  The WWF scenario requires an investment of 3% of GDP in energy efficiency and renewable resources, but those investments generate net savings by 2035. Recent wind energy power purchase agreements in Michigan have come in as low as $60/MWh and Michigan energy efficiency programs are costing $13/MWh. The Michigan Public Service Commission estimates that a new coal power plant would cost $133/MWh.

A clean and renewable energy future improves our environment, strengthens our economy, and reduces our dependence on imported energy, but we must start making more investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy now!

By John Sarver,

Chair of the Michigan Wind Working Group

To know more about the GLWC, visit http://www.glc.org/energy/wind/

By Youness Elhariri
Québec Intern for the Great Lakes Commission

Towards a greater role for wind energy: Insights from Québec

Since 2006 and the publication of The Government of Québec’s Energy Strategy, a major shift occurred in the traditional place taken by wind energy in Québec. According to this new orientation, wind power will not be a marginal power source anymore. Indeed, the province has now a goal of 4,000 MW of installed capacity by 2015 and all the indicators seem to confirm that this target will be reached. Knowing that the average power capacity of Québec is 38,000 MW, we are now talking about more than 10% of the province’s energy coming from wind power. We have long surpassed the 200 MW projects of the 1990s and this fast progression, in less than two decades, is obviously a step in the right direction.

In the coming years, after exceeding this symbolic cap of the 10%, the transition toward a more wind power-friendly province will be easier to make, both on the political and technical level. That’s why a lot of specialists and professors in the field of energy are putting forward the idea that Québec could reach 12,000 MW of wind power capacity by 2025.

It is true that Québec’s context cannot be transposed everywhere in North America (in terms of geographical position, available wind resources, acreage, etc.). However, it can be an interesting scenario to examine for the Great Lakes states that also have significant wind power potential.

That said, environmental issues will always be a key factor when considering bringing more wind power on the grid. However, the goal of Québec using wind to produce more than 20% of its energy by 2025 is driven by three other important factors: energetic independence and security, economic benefits and technical possibilities.

Energetic independence and security  

In 2005, a “National Assembly on Energy and Security and the Future for Québec” took place followed a year later by The Government of Québec’s Energy Strategy. The first objective of the latter is that Québec must strengthen its energy supply security. In other words, Québec wants to make sure that in the not-to-distant future, it will never depend on foreign suppliers to provide its energy.

If it is successful in accomplishing this objective, Québec will be able to avoid a supplementary source of uncertainty in terms of economic growth: energy price volatility. Indeed, being able to produce its energy on its own territory gives the Government of Québec the luxury to provide to its citizens and economy the necessary amount of power with affordable and stables prices. This energy supply security will be reached not only by increasing the hydro electrical capabilities of the province but also by the increasingly more important role of wind power and other alternative sources of energy. It is in that mind set that Québec decided to give Hydro-Québec (Youness, put in parentheses here a short clause about what Hydro Quebec is, such as the province’s main energy supplier or something like that) the mandate to produce wind power more widely.

Economic benefits     

The other reason explaining this increased importance of wind power to Québec is its economic benefits. According to the Québec Energy Strategy 2005-2015, published by the Government of Québec, reaching 4,000 MW of wind power capacity by 2015 will generate investments of 4.9 billion in Canadian dollars. Additionally, special requirements calling for locally produced Québec content are being implemented. In fact, a minimum of 60% of the content necessary for the production of 4,000 MW of wind power must be made in Québec. Further, special attention is given to two specific regions: the Gaspésie-Iles-de-la-Madeline region and Matane, two distant areas of the province that face problems of depopulation, exodus of the youth, unemployment, and other economic issues. For these two communities, the wind industry is more than welcome. Since it is there that most of the wind farms will be established, it is necessary to involve their people in the entire process, including employment in the supply chain, rather than simply accepting the wind farms on their landscape. Also, this new industry creates an environment favorable for developing local knowledge, expertise and a market niche for wind turbine companies, even becoming competitive at the international level. Case in point, the newspaper La Presse published an article this past fall about Eocycle Technologies, a small enterprise from Gaspésie that has manufactured wind turbines since year 2003. Last year, Eocycle Technologies exported its first wind turbine to Ohio. The firm now plans to build 20 turbines per year until 2015, then 100 turbines per year thereafater, all aimed at the North American market.

This forecasted growth is really encouraging for Québec’s economy, in particular for the two regions of Matane and Gaspésie-Iles-de-la-Madeline. It is even brighter if we consider the planned progression from 4,000 MW in 2015 to 12,000 MW in 2025. Following this path will require approximately $25 billion in Canadian investments with at least $15 billion spent in Québec. Also, according to the “local content” agreements now in place described above, this activity will consist of more than $1.4 billion in economic contributions to regional stakeholders (landowners, municipalities, etc.) over a period of 20 years. Likewise, jobs will also be part of this emerging economic growth. During the construction of wind farms, more than 9,800 jobs will be created and 2,000 jobs will stay permanently in these regions (approximately 800 manufacturing jobs and 1,200 operations and maintenance jobs).   

Technical possibilities

Achieving the 12,000 MW capacity will be easier for the province of Québec following 2015, knowing that the first step, the 4,000 MW capacity, will already be accomplished. Heretofore, the province has worked intensively on the implementation of wind power facilities and on building the associated infrastructure. Now that this is done, though investments are still needed, it’s now possible to take advantage of economies of scale and lower marginal costs. Many of these investments will interconnect new wind farms to the already existing transmission system. Gaëtan Lafrance, Ph. D in Engineering, Professor and Associate Member at Laval University, and Honorary Professor at INSR (Institut national de recherche scientifique), explains how it is possible to build these new interconnections and why it will be profitable for the Government of Québec. (See http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/qc_windvision2025_technicalopinion_fr.pdf)

In conclusion, the path to a greater role for wind power sometimes seems full of pitfalls, but the Québec example is another reminder that investing in wind power can be profitable for many and especially for local communities that benefit from jobs and associated economic impacts.

By Youness Elhariri
Québec Intern for the Great Lakes Commission

Sources:

http://www.green.ecn.ulaval.ca/chaire/2007/2007-2.pdf

http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/qc_windvision2025_technicalopinion_fr.pdf

http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/qc_windvision2025_technicalopinion_summary_en.pdf

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/environnement/201109/18/01-4448897-une-eolienne-gaspesienne-en-ohio.php

http://www.canwea.ca/pdf/canwea-Québec-windvision-e-web-final.pdf

http://www.mrn.gouv.qc.ca/english/publications/energy/strategy/energy-strategy-2006-2015-summary.pdf

To know more about the GLWC, visit http://www.glc.org/energy/wind/

By: Mark Clevey

Manager, Consumer Education & Renewable Energy Programs

MEDC Michigan Energy Office and Co-Chair, GLWC Steering Committee

Collaborative Innovation: GLWC’s Competitive Advantage

According to research conducted by the National Science Foundation (NSF), “Science and technology have been responsible for half of the growth of the American economy since WWII.”  While numerous writers have posed that innovation is the answer to our current global economic crisis, NSF’s research also shows that the U.S. annually imports $5.3 billion in advanced technology products more than we export.  Moreover, an updated report titled, Rising Above the Gathering Storm Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5, raises a number of important questions about the level of innovation in the U.S. and its implications for future competitiveness. Within this context, Bryan Walsh (The Electrifying Edison), recently noted that while Thomas Edison helped create the American Way of innovation, today the U.S. is in danger of losing its pre-eminence in science and technology.  The National Council on Competitiveness has expressed their concern in very blunt terms: “If Americans stop innovating, we stop being Americans.”

Michael Porter, an expert in competitiveness at the Harvard Business School, notes that despite these concerns, the U.S. still has a number of key competitive assets in the global marketplace: a tremendous infrastructure for scientific research, the world’s best universities, a strong commitment to competition and free markets, decentralized regional economies, efficient capital markets and, most importantly, an unparalleled environment for entrepreneurship.  In the November issue of Science magazine, Bill Gates relates this theme to energy:“It’s essential to protect American’s national interests and ensure that the United States plays a leading role in the fast-growing global clean energy industry… The United States is uniquely positioned to lead in energy innovation, with great universities and national laboratories and an abundance of entrepreneurial talent.”

Within this context, I would like to pose that the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative is uniquely qualified to take a leadership role in helping the U.S. not only protect, but effectively capitalize on our innovation and energy assets.  A sea change has occurred regarding how innovation occurs in the U.S. That plays to GLWC’s greatest strength – the fact that no one of us is as strong as all of us!  In the 1970’s, the lion’s share of the top 100 award-winning U.S. innovations came from corporations acting on their own behalf.  Over the past two decades, however, most of these award-winning innovations have started to come from inter-organizational partnerships involving business (large, medium and small) and government (including federal labs and universities).  Indeed, approximately two-thirds of award-winning U.S. innovations now involve some kind of inter-organizational collaboration. 

Judy Estrin, in her groundbreaking work titled, “Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy, writes that in order to compete effectively in the new economy we must all begin to, “think like innovators, to identify our real needs, frame the right questions, try things, assess, and adapt.”  As an organization, GLWC is well positioned to help each of its members to be more innovative.  GLWC members are ideally situated to figure out how our individual grant proposals, fund raising efforts, initiatives, projects and prospects can be made more competitive - and more compelling - through enhanced collaboration with each other, within the framework of GLWC.

One good way to start is for us all to become more knowledgeable about the science of innovation - what exactly innovation is, and what it is not. Vijay Vaitheeswaran, writing in, The Economist, notes that “the natural instinct is to think that innovation has to do with invention. That's the smallest part.  The real essence of innovation is fresh thinking that connects with value creation.”  Jeff Wacker, a futurist at Electronic Data Systems, says that innovators are people who know the 99 percent that everybody else knows and thus have the foundation on which to create the 1 percent that nobody knows.  Finally, Thomas L. Friedman has provided us with a very practical definition of innovation as a process where “creative thinking and practical know-how meet to do new things in new ways, and old things in new ways.”  

Recently, I attended an event where the speaker talked about energy efficiency and renewable energy as an “energy endowment” that essentially generates funding to support organizations.  GLWC’s ability to leverage our collaborative assets provides us with an opportunity to build energy endowments in the Great Lakes Region. It starts when we make a commitment to ramp up efforts to include GLWC as an inter-organizational team member on our future funding proposals and commit ourselves to innovation (i.e., “research is the transformation of money into knowledge while innovation is the transformation of knowledge back into money!” - Geoffrey Nichols, 3M).

By: Mark Clevey

Manager, Consumer Education & Renewable Energy Programs

MEDC Michigan Energy Office and Co-Chair, GLWC Steering Committee

To know more about the GLWC, visit http://www.glc.org/energy/wind/

By: Tony Logan

USDA Liaison and Steering Committee Co-chair: Great Lakes Wind Collaborative

I’ll Have a Double Latte and 15,000 Jobs, Please

As the gales of November strike the blustery cities around the Great Lakes—Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, to name a few—renewable energy advocates throughout the region tug up their coats, cast their eyes lakeward and ask, “why not?”

The notion of harvesting the powerful Class V and VI winds offshore in the Great Lakes for clean, renewable electrical energy has begun to take root in statehouses, city halls and boardrooms around the region. An estimated 740 Gigawatts of electricity—the equivalent of 360 nuclear power plants – awaits wind developers and utility companies willing to boldly go where no one has gone before: offshore in the freshwaters of the North American Great Lakes.

From an engineering standpoint, the problems associated with offshore wind deployment are eminently surmountable. After all, more than 3300 MW of offshore wind is already deployed in harsh European environments like the North Sea and the Baltic Sea—many in depths far greater than the Great Lakes.  Newer tower designs address the challenges presented by ice floes characteristic of freshwater lakes; specialized installation vessels have already been designed for Great Lakes waters; and studies on cross-lake bird migrations are already underway to make sure our domestic wildlife can co-exist with 300-foot wind turbines.

But the issue of cost still tends to obstruct public acceptance of offshore wind power generation. Although costs are continually coming down, coal-generated electricity is still cheaper on paper than wind power, whether generated on land or offshore.

For renewables like offshore wind to compete, many governments in Europe and Canada have established feed-in tariffs—a long-term incentive where the government agrees to purchase the electricity for an established price. Feed-in tariffs mean slightly higher costs for the consumer, but the payback for the economy is often substantial.

Societies that adopt incentives for wind almost always reap the benefits of green energy jobs, as wind turbine manufacturers and maritime industries bring factories and laydown yards to the offshore installation sites. For example, the Province of Ontario’s 2009 Green Energy Act, which established a feed-in tariff for offshore wind and other renewables, has already attracted an estimated 20,000 new jobs to the province. In spite of higher electric bills, the measure remains popular with Ontario voters. In the provincial elections last October, supporters of the Green Energy Act turned back an effort to abolish the tariff by a 60-to-35-percent margin.

An incentive available in the United States involves empowering utilities to “rate recover” for electricity purchased from renewable sources like offshore wind. Drawing from the cross-lake example of Ontario, the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) in Cleveland, Ohio is looking to be the first to deploy wind turbines offshore in the Great Lakes. Their plan is to build out a pilot project of five, 4-megawatt turbines three miles out in Cleveland Harbor.

To help fund the effort, LEEDCo is talking with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio about instituting rate recovery for the project through the local utility, First Energy. If approved by the Commission, the typical electric bill in the utility service area would increase by about .40 cents a month: $4.80 a year.

Studies suggest that if this project succeeds in being the first to get “sticks in the water,” it would stand to become the epicenter for offshore wind turbine manufacture on the U.S. side of the Lakes—a game-changing event which would create some 15,000 new jobs in the former Rustbelt cities around Lake Erie.

For the annual price of a Grande Double Caramel Latte —or in my circle of friends, a pint of locally-brewed IPA—Northern Ohio could transform its economy almost overnight and be a leader in the green energy jobs revolution.

So will the state that first brought us Standard Oil and the Wright Brothers’ aircraft also be the first to adopt offshore wind development?

It may all come down to a cup of coffee.

By: Tony Logan
USDA Liaison and Steering Committee Co-chair: Great Lakes Wind Collaborative

New blog online

The GLWC has a new blog online!