Will offshore wind someday power the Great Lakes states? A Lake Erie project may soon find out.
If all goes as planned, a renewable energy revolution could begin in a few years with a pilot project rising just eight miles off the Cleveland's shoreline, above the waves of Lake Erie.
Six turbines — essentially huge propellers — will emerge from the water that was once so polluted it fueled America's environmental movement. They will transform wind rolling over the lake into electricity, then supply it to a network onshore.
For now, only two offshore wind farms are up and running in the U.S.: the Block Island Wind farm located in the Atlantic Ocean off Rhode Island, and the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project located in the Atlantic off Virginia Beach. But many others along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico are in the early stages of development.
The project, called Icebreaker, will help “flip the script” on Lake Erie's environmental legacy, said Christopher Tavenor, associate general counsel at the Ohio Environmental Council. The idea is to wean cities off fossil fuels by providing clean energy without taking up valuable land and space.
Compared to those regions, the Great Lakes have more limited opportunities because ice can damage the turbines, and winter weather makes it difficult to service them. New York state already has put Great Lakes wind development on the back burner after a feasibility study looking at possibilities on Lakes Erie and Ontario found projects would be too costly and challenging compared to what can be done in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Lake Erie pilot project was stalled for years due to opposition, and even now, with the green light, no entity is lined up to buy the power Icebreaker will create. The delays created skepticism about whether a new industry will be able to take off.
Still, in Illinois, a lawmaker has introduced a bill that would lay the groundwork for a Lake Michigan wind farm. Chicago Democrat Marcus Evans has stressed that the development is not "a pie-in-the-sky thing," but a real chance to get ahead of the curve.
It’s hard to know where to start when building an industry from scratch, said Doug Besette, an assistant professor who researches community support and opposition in clean energy transitions at Michigan State University. The only certainty, Besette said, is that whoever wins the race to be first, and successful, will secure a real competitive advantage in the region.
For now, Great Lakes states rely on coal or natural gas to generate electricity, except for Illinois, which uses nuclear energy as well as coal. And while nuclear energy is considered a kind of clean energy from a carbon emissions standpoint, there are a lot of environmental and human health concerns because of the toxic waste it generates.
Not considering New York, the Great Lakes states have the potential to produce more than 340 terawatt hours of electricity from offshore wind, according to a 2021 study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That’s nearly half of the total energy used by the seven states in 2019.
According to the same study, Michigan, followed by Ohio and Wisconsin, have the most to gain from offshore wind in the Great Lakes.
In Canada, Ontario has had a moratorium on offshore wind projects for more than a decade as they wait for more research on the environmental impacts. They do, however, take advantage of the lakes’ wind power with turbines that line their Lake Erie shorelines.
Offshore wind is a way to create 'homegrown energy'
Icebreaker was first envisioned in the mid-2000s by the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation. Since then, it’s been handed over to Cleveland Port Authority, which is working with Fred Olsen Seawind, an offshore wind developer headquartered in Norway, to complete the final design, update the economic analysis and get the power sold to a company onshore.
Before Icebreaker was approved last year, there were many state-level delays, from questions about the environmental impact to communities worried about how the turbines will look.
But Jade Davis, senior vice president of public affairs at the Cleveland Port Authority, believes that overall, communities in northeast Ohio support the project and are ready to embrace clean energy.
Lake Erie is the easiest lake in which to develop offshore wind because it’s the shallowest. But it also comes with questions.
Some wonder what the unintended environmental consequences will be. There are lingering concerns that turbines may disrupt bird migrations, although the National Audubon Society has stated that it supports responsible offshore wind development. It’s also unclear what the impact will be on fish populations, and whether the development will stir up legacy contamination found that has settled throughout the lakes.
In the long-run, Tavenor argues, offshore wind will help protect the lakes by reducing the need for fossil fuel power plants.
In a state like Wisconsin where coal and gas aren’t extracted, it may bring an economic boost and keep money in the state, said Chelsea Chandler, the Climate, Energy and Air Program Director at Clean Wisconsin. Offshore wind is a way to create “homegrown energy,” she said.
Chandler understands that communities worry that their views of the lake will change, but unprecedented shifts in lake levels driven by climate change are already causing shorelines to erode. And on Lake Erie, views are already masked with algae blooms every summer.
The Icebreaker project has passed all of the necessary tests so far, said Davis, of the Cleveland Port Authority. She expects turbines to be in the water as early as 2025. And because it’s a pilot project, it will help developers learn how to mitigate any drawbacks.
More: A changing climate could cost Great Lakes communities billions. Here’s what's being done about it.
Fossil fuels disproportionately impact communities of color
Proponents of offshore wind development say they’ve already learned that they need to do a better job curbing misinformation and communicating the damage that has been done by fossil fuels.
Earlier this year, misinformation spread that underwater sounds from offshore wind surveys caused the death of more than a dozen whales off the coast of New Jersey, causing lawmakers to call for a moratorium on offshore wind activities.
In addition, some opponents of Icebreaker received financial support from the fossil fuel industry. Murray Energy, a now bankrupt coal company, paid for the legal fees of condominium owners that sued the project saying it would ruin their view of the lake.
“Woke-washing,” where groups will cite environmental concerns to slow projects down, is also common, Chandler said.
“We have a long way to go in correcting some of that misinformation and demonstrating that wind and solar energy are really much, much better than the alternative,” she said.
Both Besette and Tavenor said they hope money from the Inflation Reduction Act passed last year will incentivize developers enough that they push through these challenges.
Before any permanent structure goes into the lakes, it’s important to look at the tradeoffs and make sure the good outweighs the bad, said Sandra Henry, CEO of Slipstream, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization focused on clean energy solutions and equity.
For Henry, the harm that fossil fuel pollution has imparted on communities of color and low income communities is an important consideration. These communities are exposed to disproportionately higher levels of fossil fuel pollution. The pollution has serious health impacts, such as higher incidences of asthma, cancer and premature deaths and births.
But it’s also important to make sure that sources of renewable energy, like offshore wind, don’t bring higher costs to communities of color that already face higher energy burdens, Henry said.
The health impacts of breathing in fossil fuel-polluted air will only be exacerbated as the climate continues to warm, Chandler said.
“Our current energy system is failing all of us, but it’s failing some of us a lot more than others,” said Chandler. “We really do need to think about the tradeoffs and the ways we are paying with our inaction.”
Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at clooby@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @caitlooby.
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