Evanston wants wind farms on Lake Michigan

March 6, 10:06 AMChicago Green Living ExaminerTim Pareti

Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Chicago Green Living Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

While Chicago tries to land the 2016 Olympics by relying on a Green city theme, a grass-roots group in Evanston is angling to build a wind farm off the shores of Evanston.

The Citizens for a Greener Evanston  (CGE) is proposing to build an offshore wind farm on Lake Michigan in Evanston, a suburb just north of Chicago.  The offshore wind farm proposal is a major part of Evanston’s overall climate action plan to reduce the city’s greenhouse gases 13 percent by 2012. The proposal calls for 10 wind turbines to be placed four miles off the shoreline from Northwestern University to Dawes Park.

So far, the offshore wind farm is only a proposal but it did help when the City of Evanston last year adopted CGE's climate action plan, giving legitimacy to the plan's major component - an offshore wind farm.

Evanston's Green architect, Nathan Kipnis, who co-chairs CGE's Renewable Energy Task Force, said he has been getting phone calls from wind farm consultants who are curious about Evanston’s offshore wind farm proposal. Kipnis said  it would take about 7 years for the entire process, most of it involving the approval of various city, state and federal agencies.

If built, Evanston's offshore wind farm could power 9,600 homes, Kipnis said. The cost would be somewhere between $85-100 million, he said.

Kipnis said the project could be financed through wind farm developers with possibly some financial assistance from federal grants and Northshore cities that would benefit from the wind power. He also said that President’s Barack Obama’s commitment to double renewable energy in three years gives great hope to the project.

The offshore wind farm would not only power homes using a renewable energy source but would bring civic pride and worldwide recognition to Evanston, Kipnis said. It would also play into Chicago’s reputation as a Green city, and its bid for the Olympics, he added.

“For [Evanston] to be known for this would be worth its weight in gold,” Kipnis said.

www.evanstonhomesandcondos.com