Energy In the News

By Laura A. Bischoff
Staff Writer

BOWLING GREEN — Over the last 15 years, the city of Bowling Green has truly gone green, installing solar panels on schools, building a wind farm, investing in hydroelectric projects and even generating power off landfill gases.

Today, the city of 29,000 residents gets somewhere between 16 percent and 20 percent of its electricity from renewable resources.

If Ohio's governor has his way, more cities will follow Bowling Green's example.

"We've been working on it without any government push. It's been the conscience of our community," said Bowling Green Utilities Director Kevin Maynard.

If Ohio embraces green energy, wind turbines like those at the AMO-Ohio/Green Mountain Energy Wind Farm in Wood County will be a more common sight, Maynard predicted.

Gov. Ted Strickland wants to require that 25 percent of the electricity sold in Ohio by 2025 come from alternative energies, such as fuel cells, solar panels, windmills, nuclear and hydroplants. Half of that would have to come from renewable energy while the other half would come from nuclear, fuel cells or clean coal sources.

Strickland, a Democrat, wants the General Assembly to adopt his plan by year's end.

The state has a long way to go to meet Strickland's renewable energy goal. Currently, about 90 percent of Ohio's electricity comes from coal-fired power plants while less than 1 percent comes from renewable sources.

Bill Spratley of Green Energy Ohio, who served as Ohio's first Consumers' Counsel from 1977 to 1993, said wind power leads the way among renewable power sources in Ohio.

Exactly how many wind turbines Ohio would need to hit the goal of 12.5 percent for renewables depends on factors such as turbine height, location and technology, said Erin Bowser, state director of Environment Ohio.

"If we tap into a small amount of the (wind) resources across the state, we could easily get up to 20 percent of our energy from clean wind energy by 2025," Bowser said.

The AMO-Ohio site currently generates up to 7.2 megawatts of electricity, while two wind projects that received grants from the administration last week are expected to generate 149.5 megawatts of power. Some states are further along. Texas has 2,631 megawatts of capacity installed, California 2,323 and Iowa 837.

Wind maps show Ohio's windiest spots are in the northwest corner of the state and along the shores of Lake Erie.

Mark Shanahan, Strickland's energy adviser, said the cost of wind power is getting closer to market prices for other power, but wind won't replace coal-fired power plants that churn out 90 percent of Ohio's electricity. If it isn't blowing, the wind turbines aren't moving and there's no good way to store vast amounts of electricity — it has to be generated on demand.

But wind can produce electricity inexpensively. Bowser noted that a U.S. Department of Energy report pegged wind energy at 4.9 cents per kilowatt hour and estimated new clean coal plants would produce power at as much as 8.7 cents per kilowatt hour. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study estimated new nuclear power plants would produce electricity at 6.7 cents per kilowatt hour.

For environmental advocates such as Spratley, the promise of government mandates for renewable energy is a dream come true.

"We've been in the wilderness a long time in Ohio," Spratley said. "I can see the promised land and it looks pretty good."

Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1624 or lbischoff@DaytonDailyNews.com.