Obama Admin Joins Five States to Speed Up Great Lakes Offshore Wind Farms

It's easy to look at our the massive pile of rinky dink Tea Party reps taking up space in the halls of government in places like Michigan and think nothing positive is getting done. And in many cases, that's true.

But....

The Obama administration and five states, including Michigan, have reached an agreement to speed up approval of offshore wind farms in the Great Lakes, which have been delayed by cost concerns and public opposition.

With offshore wind power in the Great Lakes this is an issue that has NOTHING to do with Today, and has EVERYTHING to do with Tomorrow. It's the responsible thing to do to get that ball rolling NOW.

Many groups, including our group (the West Michigan Jobs Group), have lobbied Michigan leaders to get back to work on the offshore wind power permitting framework....even though the best case scenario is a bunch of reps who would prefer to ignore the issue, while in the worse case scenario some reps are making moves to ban offshore wind in the Great Lakes outright.

Ain't a chummy environment for renewable energy...or.....anything, really....in Michigan these days. Not until next election, baby. Am I right? Eh? Yeah, I'm right. We're so gonna flick those sticky green bums off our fingers.

But until day our leaders work with what they've got. Say what you want about Snyder, but he knows the score with our energy needs. It's not a matter of opinion...if we stick to the status quo with our energy, we're sunk for so many reasons.

The status quo isn't an option.

So the Federal government is teaming up with Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York to speed up the regulatory process for offshore wind power in the region. That's what you call an End Run around teh stoopid. Michigan will still need to craft its own regulations...but we don't have to sit around twiddling our massive Michigan thumbs until we can get that done.

Administration officials said the region's offshore winds could generate more than 700 gigawatts — one-fifth of all potential wind energy nationwide. Each gigawatt of offshore wind could power 300,000 homes while reducing demand for electricity from coal, which emits greenhouse gases and other pollutants, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

and from an email I got

The MOU does not create any new laws¸ call for new regulations or change existing authorities. Rather, it empowers the state and federal agency signatories to coordinate and share information concerning how offshore wind proposals are reviewed and evaluated with the goal of improving coordination among all of the relevant agencies and ultimately the efficiency of such reviews.

The cooperation produced by the MOU is aimed at improving efficiencies in the review of proposed offshore wind projects by enabling simultaneous and complementary reviews, and avoiding duplicative reviews. The MOU will send a market signal to prospective developers and investors that the Great Lakes region is ready to consider offshore wind proposals and that the regulatory process will be timely and efficient.

This is an issue we need to look at through the lens of decades. As the global population climbs and third world nations much larger than the US successfully achieve a higher standard of living.

As I said earlier...this is not an issue that has anything to do with Today. this is an issue that has everything to do with Tomorrow. Even if an offshore wind farm were proposed today, it would be a decade before it's up and running.

I'm 37. I'll be nearly 60 by the time these wind farms are up. This isn't for us, or me. This is a life raft we're leaving to our kids. If they choose not to use them...or if they feel they don't need them, that will be their choice. But we can at least float that choice over to them when it's time for them to take the reins.

Speaking and Learning at the Holland Renewable Energy and Jobs Presentation

I was part of a renewable energy panel discussion tonight in Holland, MI. We talked about jobs and wind power. I'm the surly looking one on the far right. I talked about the importance of standing up and making noise in favor of renewable energy.

The other speakers provided some incredible information about the state of wind power manufacturing in America and the jobs created there. A person from the Holland wind turbine blade manufacturer Energetx spoke as well. He made some incredible points about striving to make their product better and cheaper. Reducing the cost of the turbines is one of the central obsessions of wind turbine parts manufacturers.

That really struck a chord with me.

In the great wind power debate I hear an awful lot of folks screaming about government subsidies and mandates and how the free market could do this so much better.....

...but what they don't seem to realize is that the free market is very much at play here. Companies like Energetx don't exist in a vacuum. They exist in a world of hard core competition. They're not just competing with other parts manufacturers...they're competing with coal.

Folks worried that the precious and almighty free market isn't able to work its magic on renewable energies need to have a conversation with a parts manufacturer and ask them if they're forced to be highly competitive, making parts better and cheaper than they can be had from China or anywhere else in the US or Europe.

The market is very much in play. And it's making these parts better and cheaper by the day, which means our wind power is getting better and cheaper by the day.

Another interesting insight brought by a fellow with the last name of VanderVeen was this: as a general rule, a wind farm almost always has some level of activity during the day. And since wind is a product of the sun heating the earth, your greatest activity for wind power comes around noon to three o'clock when the sun is reaching its peak.....which luckily happens to coincide with peak demand times.

And darnit...we're gonna make that happen.

I feel like a big old school marm, but it's true when I say it was great to see a sea of young faces interested in learning about renewable energy. Sure, sure...some were there for extra credit. Some were there to try to ask Gotcha questions to what they thought would be the sandal wearing hippie moderating the Q & A session (me). But many were there to learn more about renewable energy and green jobs.

One of the members of our group, the West Michigan Jobs Group, organized a renewable energy presentation at Muskegon Community College, hosted by the MCC Alternative and Renewable Energy Program. Over 100 people showed up. Yikes.



That blurry guy down there in the front is me, moderating a Question and Answer session with the help of a panel of very knowledgeable folks.

We had a couple of middle aged Tea Party type folks ask questions bout subsidies and government spending, and you know what? That's OKAY. Valid questions. And they were very respectful. One of them got a little up on his soap box and talked about the national debt and suggested that none of the young people in the audience wanted to pay for that.

When her turn came to speak, a young woman responded to the Tea Party fellow's comments saying she absolutely supported investing in renewable energy, if it meant less mercury in the water and fewer of her friends had to be blown up halfway across the world because they were trying to keep the oil flowing.

That got mad applause from the audience.

Fantastic.

Here in Muskegon, young people are training to install wind turbines and solar panels. We can't let these folks down when they graduate. When they graduate....they need to have something waiting for them on the other end. A renewable energy future where their skills are needed. And dammit....we're gonna make that happen, aren't we?

Muskegon Coal Plant to Close, No Coal Burning Replacement to be Built. Demand Met by Renewables.

The 63 year old coal fire power plant in Muskegon is scheduled to close in 2015. There will be NO replacement coal plant construction.

Let me say that again: the Muskegon coal plant is shutting down, and it will not be replaced. Check THIS out...

Along with the current energy market forces, Consumers' decisions also were made based on future expectations of energy savings from efficiency measures and additional generation from alternative sources of power. Consumers Energy now is constructing the 100-megawatt Lake Winds Energy Park, a commercial wind farm in southern Mason County.

Opponents of renewable energy need to stick that in their crack bowl and smoke it. Between this and a Bay County wind farm that was put on hold because power demand had been met with renewable energy...the suggestion that wind power doesn't shut down coal plants is pretty much blown out of the water.

And it's not just ONE coal plant being shut down.

The closure of coal unites at the Cobb plant, J.R. Whiting plant near Luna Pier and the Karn/Weadock Plant near Bay City are due to the same factors that canceled the company's plans for a clean coal plant.

The closure of the seven smaller, older coal units and the environmental improvements to its remaining generating units will reduced Consumers power plant emissions by 90 percent, company officials said.

Do I have to say it again? It's a new world. I'm saddened by knowing that over 100 jobs will be lost when the coal plant closes...though there is an advanced battery manufacturing plant opening up that will employ hundreds, and a proposed wind turbine component manufacturing park. We hope that will go to help replace those jobs and give work to those families.

I drove down the road this drizzly December afternoon with my kids and passed by Every Woman's Place...an organization that helps women in need. Next to the familiar building I've seen my whole life, something news. Rows and rows and rows of solar panels pointed toward the sky generating clean energy. It was part of a project funded by the US Department of Energy from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

It's a beautiful thing.

We had to add MORE SEATS for our renewable energy presentation!

Last night our group, the West Michigan Jobs Group, hosted a showing of Carbon Nation and renewable energy presentation at the local library. As a side note I want to stress that the group has about a dozen people all working their butts off to promote wind power and green jobs in Muskegon, Ottawa, and Oceana Counties. It's our group. Our. We. Us.

And we got a nod to our efforts in the local paper in an editorial about Muskegon's mushrooming renewable energy plans....

But, Muskegon County wouldn't even have this opportunity if a group of Muskegon residents hadn't taken the initiative a year ago to let wind developers know this county wouldn't turn its nose up at jobs related to green energy like neighboring counties had.

That's US! Woohoo! And now we're working to do some more, starting with local showings of Carbon Nation.

The turnout at the first showing was great. The librarian who helped to set up the room said she always put out 30 chairs just to be safe. Well...we filled them all, and had to set up more.



There was even a line:



The movie is a VERY TIMELY renewable energy primer...timely because a LOT of the things they talk about in the movie are happening here in Muskegon and they're happening All At Once:

The most recent thing to happen here is a FEDERAL STIMULUS grant of 3.2 Million Dollars is coming to Muskegon to help build renewable energy solutions for low to mid income families AND non-profit organization in the area that benefit disadvantaged communities. Every Woman's Place, for example, is getting a solar array on the roof. AWESOME.

MUSKEGON — The Muskegon-Oceana Community Action Partnership's solar energy project gives a new meaning to “empowering” the poor.

MOCAP recently received a $3.2 million U.S. Department of Energy grant — federal “stimulus" funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — to provide renewable energy installations to Muskegon-area nonprofits serving low-income people.

Another 110 middle- and low-income homeowners in Muskegon and Oceana counties will receive similar active and passive solar energy devices. Installation of the devices by local contractors already is underway, with the project expected to be completed by March.

See that? "Installation of the devices"? Translation: JOBS! Putting people to WORK.



Another benefit of the stimulus? The Fortu PowerCell advanced battery manufacturing plant in Muskegon has begun construction...that's MORE jobs building the plant, AND more jobs when it starts making batteirs. Hundreds of them. HUNDREDS.

The Muskegon Commissioners just completed and approve the lease agreement for a 100 MW wind farm in Muskegon County's massive waste water treatment facility....

AND!

AND

AND two huge companies are looking to create an industrial park in the Muskegon area, focused on creating wind turbine parts:

MUSKEGON — Two leading West Michigan's companies have joined forces to plan a Muskegon manufacturing center designed to support the state's growing commercial wind industry.

L3 Combat Propulsion Systems in Muskegon and Rockford Berge in Grand Rapids have established the Michigan Wind Energy Consortium, which includes other companies, with the intention of forming an industrial center.

The consortium is not a developer of wind farms but a group of companies and supporting agencies that would build parts for wind turbines, ship those parts around the globe and service the land-based wind industry.

And they want to do it from Muskegon.

Seriously...it's like a dream come true. If we can secure these industries. If we can MAKE things again. If we can DIVERSIFY our economy into new industries....

...we can FINALLY be putting people back to work. Muskegon has had a rough 30 years, with ups and downs, but mostly downs with double digit unemployment as often as not. Our downtown has been literally bulldozed to the ground so we could start over. And the people here have been trying like HELL to re-invent the economy here for decades, trying to add more diverse industries to the mix. And it seems like we're right on the edge of actually doing it RIGHT NOW.

Stay tuned.





Hat Tip to the Sierra Club for letting us use the movie!

Companies Look to Create Turbine Part Manufacturing Center in Muskegon

This sounds pretty awesome. Looks like a consortium of companies is looking to establish a center for developing and manufacturing wind turbine parts, and they've selected Muskegon, Michigan as the place to do it.

MUSKEGON — Two leading West Michigan companies have joined forces to plan a Muskegon manufacturing center designed to support the state's growing commercial wind industry.

The proposed consortium of the two companies and multiple others — including at least one global firm — would not be a developer of wind farms but a group of companies and supporting agencies which wants to build parts for wind turbines, ship those parts across the globe and service the land-based wind industry.

And they want to do it from Muskegon.

Tonight I Learned the Smart Grid Will Destroy the Universe

Whoa.

Dude. Room Full of CRAZY.

Tonight I went to the Public Service Commission (PSC) public input meeting.


I was looking forward to hearing some information on renewable energy -- wind, as it turns out, is as cheap or way cheaper than coal...awesome.

I was looking to find answers to what would become of the now defunct Low Income and Energy Efficiency -- this is the fund once managed by the Public Service Commission that helped low income families heat their homes or make their homes more fuel efficient. It also helped fund renewable energy education and research projects. But a new law and a court ruling declared that the PSC has no authority to do any of those things. So....here we are right before winter and no authority helping people with heating assistance. Classy. And we're dead in the water with funding renewable energy initiatives OR having long term funding for the new offshore wind power research buoy going into Lake Michigan. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But...the topic du jour was the new smart grid...

Or more specifically, new smart meters which are to replace the old meters on peoples' homes. Here I expected the audience to ask questions like "how does it work?" and "will it save me money?" and "can I control it online?" stuff like that.

But instead what I heard was statement after statement after statement about how the new smart grid was a government conspiracy to find and detain people who dare to use incandescent lightbulbs, and that smart meters are going to fry your brains out and give you cancer.

One man in the back asked if these new smart meters can be turned off remotely, shutting off power to the house. The man started talking Big Brother when the PSC guy answered in the affirmative. Oh my GOD! Government Overreach! Government Overreach! The POWER company has the ability to disconnect my POWER! ARRRRGH!

One after another, after another, after another....."I don't want the government telling me how to save energy...I know how to save energy."

"I heard the government can tell if I'm using incandescent lightbulbs and will disconnect my power instantly if they discover I'm using those old bulbs!"

"I read that these things will destroy the electricity not just your own house, but in your neighbors houses too...even if you don't have one if your neighbor does it will corrupt your electricity!"

"They've been a disaster in Europe! Just look at Spain!"

"This is just a way for the Greens to get into our lives and make us get used to a lower standard of living."

On and on and on and on and on and on and on...a whole crowd of people who had assembled to voice concerns about some of the wackiest crap I've heard for a long time. Everything short of smart meters sucking your home into a vortex that starts a chain reaction collapsing the entire universe into a singularity.

We're all going to die.

...this one is new to me. Heck, I took a peek in the wikipedia entry on smart meters and as of 11/3/2011, nobody has written any entries about the horrifying evils of smart meters.

I'm still kind of stunned.

Muskegon County Unanimously Approves 100 MW Wind Farm Lease , Plus Local Green Manufacturing

Just returned from the Muskegon County Comissioners meeting where our county comissioners UNANIMOUSLY approved a proposed lease agreement for a wind farm in the 11,000 acre Muskegon waste water treatment facility. The commissioners and attendees were optimistic and excited to see this step in a 100 MW wind farm in Muskegon County move forward...enough to power over 20,000 homes, or about a third of the numer of households in Muskegon County.

The fellow I was sitting to, who actually asked not to be named, is from a local manufacturing company. His company is somehow involved in the process, and is happy that the contract includes a requirement for a certain percentage of locally manufactured components.

That's what I'm talking about.............

......jobs.

Not just jobs. But diversified jobs. Jobs in a new, non automobile related industry. See....while our leaders in Lansing seem singularly to blame tax code for Michigan's long term economic failure, the saner money would put that blame on an economy nearly singular focsued on a faltering domestic automobile manufacturing industry.

Economic diversification is the key. And that's what we're getting here. Is it going to be the one thing that saves us? No. Nothing will be. It will be A thing, ONE of the things, that helps us diversify into a more robust and buoyant economy.

The wind farm will be a significant source of revenue for the county, as well...and assuming our leaders don't scrap the Personal Property Tax without a replacement, it will also prove to be a healthy revenue source for local municiapalities.

We're moving forward here, in Muskegon County. We WANT to succeed. We WANT to embrace a hope and ambitious future. After decades of languishing, after getting beaten down from de-industrialization and factories fleeing the region for Mexico and China, Muskegon is preapared to do big things.

THIS is what happens when community rallies to do big things.

It's a huge deal!

It's a huge deal for renewable energy and wind power. It's a HUGE deal for the study and health of birds and bats over the Great Lakes. Its a HHHUGE deal for Great Lakes researchers and the ecological health of the Great Lakes.



And it's a huge deal for West Michigan and Muskegon and Grand Valley State Universtiy.

HUGE!

THIS is what happens when a region and a community rallies to do and reach for BIGGER things.



Today in Muskegon, Michigan, researches held a dedication ceremony for the FIRST EVER advanced research buoy in North America to be put into the water at all, ever, and it was launched right here at the Muskegon based, NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.




This thing is going to monitor weather patters, wind speeds, bird migration, water temperatures and currents, water chemistry. This thing is the most advanced floating laboratory ever put in the water in the United States and it's going into my beloved lake.

Sure, sure...there are currently three advanced offshore wind research buoys. But two of them are currently languishing on the shore, waiting for the funding and go-ahead to actually be launched.

The launch of the buoy in the Great Lakes is the first introduction of this technology anywhere in North America, said Arn Boezaart, director of the Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center. “The research buoy represents an amazing new capacity for wind research in the Great Lakes," he said. "It includes the most advanced wind measurement technology available."

Following a week of tests on Muskegon Lake, the buoy will move four miles offshore on Lake Michigan for a month-long trial.

Real-time data will be transmitted from the platform to researchers at Grand Valley, U-M and the Michigan Natural Features Inventory of Michigan State University. The research will provide information to support possible future development of offshore wind energy technology in the Great Lakes. MNFI research will focus on bird and bat flight patterns and migration studies.

The primary objective of the Lake Michigan offshore wind assessment is to gain a better understanding of the potential of offshore wind energy, as well as other physical, biological and environmental conditions on the Great Lakes. The research will provide information for the future development of offshore wind energy technology. In June 2010, the project secured $3.3 million in grants and research funds, including a $1.33 million energy efficiency grant from the Michigan Public Service Commission.

The world is inexorably moving in the direction of renewable energy.

It cannot be stopped.

We still do big things in America. We still reach for a better world. And there are still parts of America where people rally together to move forward. This buoy is a huge joint effort from many groups and people from all political ideologies, industries, non profit organizations, and scientific disciplines.

We WANT to be people of vision.

We WANT to dream big dreams.

We WANT to lead the way in renewable energy and a future sector of green manufacturing, offshore wind power.

And we're doing it right here in Muskegon, Michigan.

Court Kill Heating Assistance and Renewable Energy with One Stone

Not only are we watching heating assistance for 95,000 low income families come to an abrupt end with no resolution or action from our legislature. But we also get to watch the de-funding of a Lake Michigan platform for researching the viability of offshore wind power.

Two in one blow!

The Michigan Public Service Commission set up and administers the "Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund" as per the Customer Choice and Electricity Reliability Act of 2000.

What does it do? For one, it helps low income families pay for heat in the winter. It ALSO invests in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. It has for most of a decade.

But that was then. This is now:

"The courts earlier this summer ruled that the Public Service Commission did not have legislative authority in the latest Michigan energy law to fund the Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund

The Michigan Public Service Commission, under new law, no longer has the AUTHORITY to FUND the Low Income and Energy Efficiency Fund.

Nor does it have the authority to GRANT funds from it. The court ruling earlier suggested that LIEEF was not about energy regulation (the mission of the Public Service Commission), but was a form of welfare, and therefore, the PSC has no authority to fund LIEEF, administer LIEEF, or grand funds from LIEEF.

Who does?

**shrug**

Who cares, right?

Does it really matter? The same Conservative leadership that shoved thousands of Michigan families out on the streets today during the worst jobs crisis in generations, now gets to stand by and watch 95,000 Michiganders off from heating assistance with no action.

And as a bonus, they get to deal a massive wound to renewable energy efforts.

Wind Power Dries Up Demand for Coal Fired Power Plant

If anybody every asks you if a wind farm ever closed down a coal fired power plant, you can tell them they sure as hell stopped the construction of the Bay County power plant in its tracks. It's a favorite canard of wind farm opponents to suggest that wind power has never shut down a coal fired power plant. Well...they're wrong...

Eastern Michigan has been meeting power demand with renewable energy to the point where there just isn't any energy demand to justify the construction of the 2.3 billion dollar coal fired power plant anymore. Consumer's Energy put the plan on hold. Judy Planau of the Michigan Public Service Commission said:

“We have more than enough electricity to meet the current demand,” Palnau said. “Right now, there are no problems in supplying the demand, so that’s a reason why Consumers wouldn’t be building their new plant right now.”

It breaks my heart.

HAMPTON TOWNSHIP — There are big plans under way to generate new electric power in Bay County, the Great Lakes Bay Region and around the state.

But a new coal-fired power plant at Consumers Energy’s Hampton Township complex isn’t in the mix right now.

From a wind-turbine farm in southern Bay County to a cutting-edge biomass-fueled plant in Midland County, other companies are moving forward with variety of energy projects.

It's no concidence that the largest wind farm in Michigan is going up within a stone's throw of where the coal plant would have been.

No one will mistake these miles and miles of flat farmland for the Thumb or the shores of Lake Michigan. But here in the middle of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, where the wind happens to blow just right, the state's largest wind farm is starting to take shape amid fields of corn, beans and sugar beets.

In just a few weeks, enormous steel towers, fiberglass blades, gearboxes and other parts that go into 464-foot-tall wind turbines will be arriving from around the country. About 150 construction workers will begin building the first of 133 wind turbines at the new Invenergy wind farm in the northeast corner of Gratiot County, west of Saginaw.

That along with many other wind farms have unquestionably shut down a coal fired power plant. Cleaner air and cleaner water for the folks in Michigan's thumb region.

Great news. And it's a lot more affordable.