LEEDCo’s Lake Erie wind power ambitions have gone from questionable to boondoggle. The idea of defacing one of the world’s greatest natural wonders in preference to more economical land sites never made sense. Nor was the feasibility of building in frozen waters ever critical to the development of a healthy wind energy industry. Spiraling energy costs gave some credence to their efforts a decade ago, but those days are long gone. Given the availability of cheap natural gas for decades to come LEEDCo’s Lake Erie project will never be commercially viable. The only thing Cleveland will gain from the $120 million in federal dollars paid to a foreign company to build this debacle (“Norwegian wind company to build LEEDCo off-shore turbine project,” Plain Dealer, Dec. 8) will be obsolete rusting hulks, reminiscent of the Hulett ore unloaders that used to define our lakefront.
James Walsh,
Westlake