Brownfields and Wind Farming in Northwest Indiana
11 April 2007 06:22 PM | Indiana, NW Indiana and Porter
County
In Northwest Indiana most of our rustbelt brownfields
are located up near Lake Michigan. Some of that land
will eventually be reclaimed for residential or
entertainment uses, but a lot of that land will never
be used for decades. Why can't some of that land be
used for wind farming?
1. You have a ready market for power close by with Indiana and Chicago.
2. Nipsco, our local power company gets all their power from coal and I'm sure they could use some non-polluting generating capacity.
3. You have land that is lying vacant and which nobody really wants to build upon.
4. You have a source of wind with Lake Michigan.
If we can put wind turbines around the edges of farmers fields and pay them a lease fee, I would think we could also put wind turbines on a bunch of vacant unused industrial land for a decade or two until somebody figures out how to detoxify that land and reclaim it for other uses.
I'm trying to see the downside here and I can't. Maybe somebody should tell NIPSCO?
1. You have a ready market for power close by with Indiana and Chicago.
2. Nipsco, our local power company gets all their power from coal and I'm sure they could use some non-polluting generating capacity.
3. You have land that is lying vacant and which nobody really wants to build upon.
4. You have a source of wind with Lake Michigan.
If we can put wind turbines around the edges of farmers fields and pay them a lease fee, I would think we could also put wind turbines on a bunch of vacant unused industrial land for a decade or two until somebody figures out how to detoxify that land and reclaim it for other uses.
I'm trying to see the downside here and I can't. Maybe somebody should tell NIPSCO?
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