The Great Lakes
and Renewable Energy
Tapping
the Great Lakes for renewable energy has been a major item
for over 100 years, and the biggest example of this takes
place near Niagara Falls:
The waters
of the Great Lakes are also used for cooling (much of this
connected with electrical power generation), as a very large
scale battery (Ludington, Niagara Falls) for the regional
electric grids, and it can be used as a thermal source.
And then
there are the winds. The Great Lakes region of North America
was once one of the greatest temperate rainforests on the
planet. About the only place that trees do not grow (unless
they are prevented from doing so) is the actual lakes themselves.
While we love our trees, they certainly have a dramatic effect
on wind speeds near ground level, as you can feel when you
emerge from a forested area into a field or onto the coastline
on a windy day. Trees, hills and buildings tend to slow down
the wind speeds at the surface, and this effect is observed
between the ground level and up to several hundred feet above
the ground. But as the winds move across the surfaces of large
bodies of water, wind speeds near ground level, and especially
at 100 meters (about a football field in length) above the
surface become significantly faster than at corresponding
heights across our forested or urbanized land. This is easily
observed on the world wind map (link to graphic). On the world
map, note how the faster wind speeds tends to be clustered
around certain latitudes, such as the 40 and 50 degree latitudes
(Buffalo, NY is near 43 degrees N). These are indicated by
the darker blue colors on the map.
And on
the U.S. North Coast and Canadian South Coast, this is definitely
a form of Lake Effect Energy. In fact, this renewable energy
is significantly larger than the total hydroelectric potential
of the Great Lakes.
This effect
is often noticed whenever you walk or bike along the coastline
of the Great Lakes, where the breezes and winds generally
seem more vigorous and more frequent than further inland.
These lakes are, in effect, small, freshwater oceans, where
the only obstacle that the winds moving over them might experience
are the waves kicked up by the winds themselves:
This means
that some of the best winds in our region at heights where
modern wind turbines can tap them are on the lakes or near
the coastline, especially in flat areas, such as those formed
by river floodplains as they intersect with the lakes. However,
all areas on or near the lakes do not have the same wind potential.
Some of the best wind sites are along the eastern shorelines,
where the prevailing westerly winds have traveled considerable
distances across the lakes. A great example can be seen in
the wind rose near the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Buffalo,
NY (obtained from the New York State Wind Map). The prevailing
winds flowing across Lake Erie tend to move from the west-southwest
to the east northeast direction, paralleling the major orientation
of this lake.
The winds
on the Great Lakes have been studied for some time, and are
now monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) in the U.S. and Environment Canada in Canada. Some
regional lake weather monitoring stations (some are only available
for part of the year) are shown here:
For example, information
such as the following is available.
Modern
wind turbine technology has progressed to an enormous extent,
and commercial turbines, as well as becoming very large, are
also tourist attracting structures in themselves (for example,
Toronto has one located at the CNE grounds in the heart of
the city). As of 2005, the
wind industry is close to a $US 10 Billion per year
industry worldwide, with a very significant growth rate. Such
turbines can extract an average of 30 to 40 percent of their
rated capacity using winds documented on or near the Great
Lakes.
And since
electricity made with wind turbines repays the total amount
of energy used to make and install them in 3 to 6 months,
and produces essentially no waste (air pollution, greenhouse
gasses, nuclear waste or even thermal pollution), tapping
lake enhanced winds seems like a smart thing to do. It is
even less expensive to make electricity with wind than it
is with oil and natural gas, given the hydrocarbon pricing
that we experienced in 2004.
And besides,
it's all homegrown energy, providing a buffer to unreliable
prices and supplies obtained from outside the Great Lakes
Region. And local electrical power production can recycle
money locally that is otherwise exported to distant regions
for fossil fuels.
So we
feel that lake effect winds are the next Niagara Falls. Electricity
made from these winds may not be as inexpensive as Niagara
Falls hydroelectric energy (no other electricity currently
is), is more variable, but can work well with Niagara pumped
hydro storage, and the winds, on average, just never seem
to stop but instead, keep on cruising.
