Wind power also is seeing increased popularity, but mostly on a large scale such as the wind farms in Pennsylvania and West Virginia that will soon be selling power to FirstEnergy. Wind power is usually prohibited in urban areas because it requires large towers.

The $53,500 grant is being dispensed as part of the Value Added Agriculture Product Market Development Grant Program. The money will fund a feasibility study of wind energy including wind testing using altimeter.

"Most of the renewable energy is in rural America, and our co-ops serve 75 percent of the American geography. It is important we play a role," said Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which is having a regional conference for co-op officials from 14 states through Friday in downtown Cincinnati.

The village of Elmore installed a 50-meter Meteorological Monitoring Tower Friday, Aug. 25, in conjunction with North Coast Wind & Power, LLC, on village property next to the Ohio Turnpike. The tower will monitor wind and weather conditions for a 12 to 18-month period to collect data for a feasibility study.

New jobs could come from alternative energy sources, including wind turbines and other alternative energy sources, Leavitt said.

If early renderings are any indication, Cuyahoga County's new administration building will be a glassy, multistory affair symbolic of commissioners' desires to project an eco-friendly, transparent image....... The wings meet a glassy, 10-story office building, highlighted by corner atriums. Plans showed roof-top gardens and wind turbines atop the office building.

A new task force wants to know if Cuyahoga County's energy future is blowing in the wind. The county commissioners this week appointed a 17-member body to craft an alternative-energy policy that will focus initially on the promise of wind power.

Commissioner Tim Hagan said the task force’s first order of business would be to investigate putting wind turbines in Lake Erie.

HURON, Ohio - Lake Erie could become the "Saudi Arabia of wind" power, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) said yesterday. But no more wind turbines should be built along the lake shoreline until all potential impacts on wildlife have been studied in depth, Miss Kaptur added. The same goes for entertaining any proposals to install them in the open waters of the Great Lakes, she added

As wildlife advocates demand more studies of avian mortality from wind turbines, the federal government has blocked plans for several wind farms in Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest on the grounds that the giant turbines could interfere with military radar.

OHIO — The village of Ohio TIF and building committee recommended at its regular meeting Tuesday night that mayor Charlie Thomas set up a meeting with representatives of Midwest Wind Energy to discuss how far wind turbines can be erected from the village limits.

PORT CLINTON - Port Clinton and Ottawa County are joining area communities in exploring the use of wind to generate electricity, which has picked up momentum with the success of Bowling Green's wind farm.

ELMORE - Although the village owns a small part of Ohio's first utility-scale wind farm, Elmore officials are exploring the feasibility of buying their own wind turbines.

PORT CLINTON -- City Council is looking into joining other Ottawa County governments to bring energy-producing windmills to the area, thus decreasing local dependency on FirstEnergy to provide electricity. Paul Hoag, president of North Coast Wind & Power LLC, told council during its Tuesday night work session that the city has the potential to save significantly by purchasing the windmills, or wind turbines, with Elmore, Oak Harbor and Ottawa County.

PORT CLINTON -- City Council is looking into joining other Ottawa County governments to bring energy-producing windmills to the area, thus decreasing local dependency on FirstEnergy to provide electricity.

The Ashtabula County Citizens for Open Government will meet 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 5 at the Henderson Library in Jefferson. The subject this month is "Alternative Energy Sources."

But in an interview with The Blade, Larry Flowers of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory said he does not envision any offshore turbines being built west of Cleveland because of the lake's fragile ecology on its western end.