WEST MICHIGAN - How close is too close?

That question is one of the first - and, so far, the thorniest - to address in the debate over locating wind turbines on the Great Lakes.

It was at the crux of the argument that hundreds of residents - many of them cottage owners, fearing that windmills will ruin their view of Lake Michigan - brought to public hearings in Ludington and Shelby last week.

It's an issue that state officials will wrestle with in the coming months. And it could decide how economically feasible offshore wind farms would be in the Great Lakes.

Norwegian developers proposing the 100-square-mile Aegir Offshore Wind Farm off the Oceana-Mason County line say that the further wind turbines are from shore, the higher the costs of constructing and operating them.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm's Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth, along with the newly combined Department of Natural Resources and... [continue via Web link]