Investors looking for true green, that is, realistic ecological projects which utilize other than fossil fuels should know that most are still a look-into-the-future play, but as the late football coach George Allen used to say, maybe the future is now, or at least much closer. Although the first Earth Day was held in 1970, the gasoline crisis was in the early ’70s, and we hear much more about alternative energy sources and green projects than we’ve actually seen commercially deployed, some changes have slowly begun to filter their way into the behemoth that is the world’s economic systems.
While hybrid cars and recycled trash are green projects that are in their nascent stages of realization, but with far more development likely, one eco-friendly resource just getting out of the blocks is wind power. As solar power has been slow to gain commercial traction, with its current high costs and spotty development, wind power advocates hope to eclipse that progress in the not so distant future. Other countries have been ahead of the US in embracing wind power, but one large company, General Electric (NYSE: GE) is joining in.
GE’s plans to place 66 wind power turbines on the north shore of Lake Erie in Ontario signals a serious foray into the clean power arena, according to Tom Catino, in a story published on Wind Energy News. In a fledging industry that’s thus far been dominated by small, often micro-sized companies, GE is throwing its considerable heft in the ring. The company has over a century of presence and experience in power generation in Canada, and the Erie Shores Wind Farm marks a new phase in the company’s history.
The project will be developed through a company called GE Energy Erie Shores Wind Farm Limited Partnership, and along with GE providing the turbines, they will operate and maintain the project for the first four years. This is a joint venture with the Clean Power Income Fund and the AmGen Power Corporation, a private Canadian firm. The Canadian Government has been actively promoting and is actively seeking to expand wind power as a environmentally preferred source of power.
On the American side, US projects are currently slated for Buffalo and possibly Cleveland. Lake Erie and the surrounding area is surprisingly windy with constant sustained winds often in the 13 to 16 mph range, often gusting higher. This wind is all-seasonal, thus its appeal for development. The mixture of cities, along with less populated areas on the shores of the lake, offers an intriguing mix of development possibilities.
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