Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Visiting Michigan's Green Job Economy at the Michigan Energy Fair

Watching some Fullmetal Alchemist on Netflix, breathing in the warm evening breeze coming in from the window. Enjoying some time to myself after some time at the beach with some friends and the kids. Whole lotta splashing around and sand.

Last weekend my little boys and I made our way to the Michigan Energy Fair near Ludington and visited some of the many vendors and businesses in the area innovating through renewable energy, creating new jobs and opportunities in our state. Four Elements Energy for one. Those guys are cool. Clearly love what they do. They're the folks who set up the solar array for the folks down the street.

Here's a picture of somebody charging his or her Chevy Volt up at one of the Four Elements Energy solar setups:



There were quite a few Volt drivers there. Never seen so many in one place. If there wasn't a wall in the way I'd have been able to get a photograph with three Chevy Volts in it. Here it is:


There's one in the foreground charging up at a plugin station. There's one behind the tent, the silver one being charged up with the solar array, and inside that building is one more. But you can't see it cuz there's a wall in the way.

My two little boys made paper pinwheels, got a lot of fun schwag from the displays and vendors, and the made solar cooking boxes for making s'mores. Then we took a tour of the Lake Winds Energy Park under construction near Ludington. It was beautiful...and the construction of the wind farm employs 150 people.

We first got to see the place where they kept the wind turbine components as they got shipped in:

Here's a row of 165 foot long wind turbine blades.


This is a hub and some tower components:


And here they are under construction, with some completed ones: