Muskegon has the hunger, man.
Muskegon wants to be the North American leader in offshore wind power. And fortunately we have a lot of support, from the grass roots to the Universities.
Grand Valley State University and Michigan Technological University have entered into a partnership with a Seattle based company, PelaStar, to test floating offshore wind turbine platforms in Lake Michigan fully equipped with a working wind turbine prototype.
How many offshore wind turbines exist in the United States? Zero.
Zero.
This is cutting edge stuff going on here. The race is on. And Grand Valley State University has North America's ONLY deployed advanced research buoy, and it's currently in Lake Michigan midway between Muskegon and Milwaukee testing a gagillion things from wind speeds at various levels, to water currents, to bird migrations.
The floating platforms would make wind turbines viable in Lake Michigan miles beyond where they'd be visible from shore. Not only does that cut down on the moaning and belly achin' from the land owning elite....it puts a LOT more of Lake Michigan in play for wind power production. The issue with Lake Michigan is, a few miles from shore the waters have a sheer drop off to 300+ feet of water. Floating platforms would make Great Lakes wind turbines far more viable further out along the Mid Lake Plateau.
The Great Lakes have the potential to produce 700 Gigawatts of electricity. 700,000 Megawatts. Obviously we can't tap all of it. But we sure as hell can make a good dent in our energy needs.
West Michigan is IN this race for North American dominance in the offshore wind power market.