A few months ago I talked about how my home State, Ohio, is taking steps toward offshore wind. Last week a new study was released that indicates that the offshore wind industry could be a huge boon to the state delivering thousands of jobs over the next 40 years. The economic impact study, released by NorTech, investigated two scenarios. The first assumed 1500MW of installed wind turbines on Lake Erie by 2030. The second scenario modeled, assumes 5000MW of installed wind turbines by 2030. According to some contacts in the industry, this is probably the volume of installations necessary to bring a majority of the manufacturing of wind components to Ohio. Under this level of installation, most components would be manufactured out of State and shipped. Obviously the State would love to attract those manufacturing jobs to this area that is currently reeling from the downfall of the auto industry.
There are many technical and legal hurdles to making either scenario work, but as an Ohioan, I am happy that there are folks out there trying to make this a reality.
Posted by Mark Norfolk
