Apr 5 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Tom Henry The Blade, Toledo, Ohio

A year ago, the idea of putting wind turbines out in the open waters of Lake Erie to generate electricity seemed like just another item on a renewable energy buff's wish list.

Today, there are signs of momentum building.

The latest was an all-day summit yesterday at the Wyndham Hotel in downtown Toledo, the first of its kind that the U.S. Department of Energy has organized for the Great Lakes region. About 200 people - many of them state and federal employees - came together to exchange research into the viability of offshore wind power in the lakes.

The event came seven months after a nonprofit group, Green Energy Ohio, completed the installation of Lake Erie's biggest data-gathering wind tower. The 6,000-pound tower, which stands 165 feet above Lake Erie's surface, is anchored to Cleveland's water intake crib about 3.5 miles north of that city's shoreline.

"This is the beginning of the process of understanding the stakeholders, said organizer Larry Flowers of the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and team leader of its National Wind Technology Center in Boulder, Colo.

While there are no immediate plans to install offshore turbines in the Great Lakes, "the potential is huge," said John Sarver, the Michigan Energy Office's superintendent of technical assistance. "I think eventually there will be wind turbines in the lakes."

This morning, several public officials are expected to begin a new Great Lakes networking group to keep states abreast on offshore wind technology and market issues, Mr. Flowers said.

The collaboration is being promoted by the Energy Department under its Wind Powering America initiative, which strives to have the nation get 20 percent of its electricity from wind someday.

Wind is the fastest-growing energy source, but accounts for less than 1 percent of the U.S. energy generation. By 2020, its market share is expected to be 6 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO in September issued a report that said wind power generally doesn't seem to harm wildlife as much as people think, if the turbines are sited properly. However, the report cited problems with the Altamont Pass project in northern California that was built in the 1980s in a bird flyway and has poorly designed turbines. It has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of hawks, golden eagles, and raptors.

The same report also cited concerns about wind turbines in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other Appalachian Mountain locations killing thousands of bats.

Joe Perlaky, a Green Energy Ohio board member and a University of Toledo project manager for alternative energy issues, said Toledo was chosen for yesterday's Great Lakes summit because it's where wind and wildlife issues collide.

Western Lake Erie is in one of North America's biggest flyways. For that reason, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have said they would fight any attempt to locate turbines in Lake Erie's western basin.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) recently helped the Energy Department secure a $200,000 grant to study wind and wildlife issues between the Maumee River and Sandusky Bay, Mr. Perlaky said.

The Great Lakes region will draw upon experiences in other parts of the country - and the world - if offshore wind turbines are pursued. Offshore wind is booming in parts of Europe.

Yesterday's speakers included a Danish biologist, Charlotte Boesen, who is employed by that country's ENERGI E2 electrical utility. She told The Blade that Denmark installed about 80 turbines in the Baltic Sea in 2003, but estimates fewer than 1 percent of that area's birds ever get close enough to be at risk of colliding with the devices.

"What we see is the birds flying around the wind farm," she said.

The Baltic occasionally freezes because it is more brackish than the Atlantic Ocean. Denmark's turbines in the Baltic have withstood impacts from the ice - something that turbines in the Great Lakes would have to be designed to do.

Anne Barker of the Canadian Hydraulics Centre, a federal agency in Canada that studies ice, said the research is encouraging. But she said ice can affect lake sediment turbines are anchored in, as well as the structures themselves.

Contact Tom Henry at:

thenry@theblade.com

or 419-724-6079.