North Carolina's Duke Energy Co. hopes to lease enough farmland for its proposed Gail Windpower Project, which would mean green power and greenbacks for these recession-ravaged counties south of Traverse City.
Here's an excerpt:
Huge wind turbines could pop up in Manistee farmlands in 2012, generating enough electricity to power 30,000 homes, while employing nearly 300 workers in a rural county hard hit by the recession.
Duke Energy of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been quietly contacting farmers in Manistee and Benzie counties to see if they would be willing to lease land for the Gail Windpower Project, which would consist of 56 wind turbines capable of generating 101 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity. The first phase of the project will encompass approximately 8,000 acres of land in Manistee County, primarily around Arcadia and Pleasanton.
"We hear a lot of talk out there by all the pundits about creating jobs in Michigan," said Manistee County Commission Chairman Allan O'Shea who is working with Duke Energy to make the proposed wind farm become reality.
"Well this is going to produce 280 jobs for 18 months, and produce revenues for the counties that aren't going to be tied to people moving into the counties or increasing or improving infrastructure because these are systems that operate themselves. The benefactors will be the community."
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