Great Lakes wind power
Religion & Liberty Online

Great Lakes wind power

A three-day meeting is scheduled to begin tomorrow in Toledo, Ohio, and is set to discuss the possibility of putting wind farms on the Great Lakes. The session is sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency among other groups, and will include conversations about “how to protect birds, bats and fish from the windmills.”

According to the AP, wind farms on the Great Lakes would include “rows of windmills” that “would tower as high as 400 feet and float or stand in relatively shallow water.” Some opponents of wind farms point out the danger that the turbines can represent to migratory bird populations. Acton’s Anthony Bradley has noted that the Sierra Club calls wind towers “Cuisinarts of the air” (listen to related interview here).

The attractiveness of wind farms based on water rather than land has to do with the relatively greater strength of wind which sweeps over bodies of water. Walt Musial, a senior engineer and offshore programs leader for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy contractor, said, “Offshore machines can make about twice as much as onshore.”

Other concerns relate to the high startup and capital costs involved in the construction of these projects, perceptions about the unpredictability and unreliability of wind power, and issues of visual pollution.

Jordan J. Ballor

Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.