the future blows in michigan

Today’s Great Lakes IT Report has some interesting coverage of the wind power conference held earlier this week at Michigan State University. Here’s a clip:

…”Manufacturing and Developing Wind Energy Systems in Michigan” aimed to link wind power companies with Michigan’s manufacturing base, which is more than capable of building the mechanical guts of wind turbine systems.

It also offered a look at ideas and regulations for creating wind power businesses, and information from veteran wind entrepreneurs.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm was the event’s Tuesday luncheon speaker, earning a standing ovation from a packed conference room for promising to pass this fall a “renewable portfolio standard” law for the state. Such laws, common in many other states, mandate that a certain percentage of a state’s total energy consumption be generated from renewable sources by a certain future date.

Granholm said Michigan’s long coastline — longer than California’s or Florida’s, longer than any state except Alaska — combined with its deep manufacturing expertise make Michigan one of the world’s top prospects for generating wind power…

More on the conference can be found here… And, for those of you who, for whatever reason, don’t care about alternative energy in Michigan, footage of Britney Spears’ recent train wreck/comeback can be found here.

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9 Comments

  1. Steph
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 10:21 am | Permalink

    Looks like Britney’s experiencing an energy shortage of her own.

  2. Robert
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 10:36 am | Permalink

    Thank you for the Britney video link. We appreciate it.

    Oh, so now it’s “for whatever reason” someone doesn’t care about alternative energy. I think you had it right the first time (wink). I understand the self-censorship though, with your political career appearing on the horizon and all. It’s all not so simple anymore is it there, punk-rock boy. ;)

    It’s all good, Mark. Ol’E Cross and I are your 527’s anyway. Let us do the dirty work. I’ve pretty much called everyone who reads your blog a fucker at one time or another. But you’re going to have to be extra careful about not letting people figure out I am really just another one of your pseudonyms…Oooops. (Now where is that edit function again?) I mean please, are people really buying this ‘Robert the roaming mm.com reporter’ bit? Ok, let’s get this straight; some jackass is supposedly out there hanging with the Edwards campaign, seeing conspiracies everywhere, fighting with Mel Ayton, and just generally being a dick to everyone. These just happen to be all the things Mark Maynard himself would be doing if he wasn’t so decent and responsible. Coincidence everyone?

    Now where was I? Oh yeah, the topic…Granholm should just promise the windmill construction contract to Amway. Then we’d see some serious movement on all this. Of course, as is with all Republican government contract deals, the job would never get done, and cost over-runs would go through the roof. We’d have to sell the upper peninsula to Wisconsin to stay afloat.

  3. egpenet
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 1:19 pm | Permalink

    Who BETTER to build windmills than the Dutch?

    Problem is … with the West coast of Michigan loaded up with windmills, it might blow Michigan even closer to Canada than we’d like.

    ‘Course, then we wouldn’t need a second bridge! We could just walk over the border.

    On the other hand, it would make Lake Michigan bigger, and that’s not all bad.

  4. maryd
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 7:08 pm | Permalink

    egpenet, anything that makes big blue bigger is good. They have some big windmills up in the Leelenau peninsula, I don’t know how much power they produce though.

  5. mark
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 10:49 pm | Permalink

    So you caught that, huh? Yeah, I decided I was being a bit too harsh…

    The original post said that the Britney clip was a gift to my “stupid” readers. After putting it up, though, I felt it may have been a mistake. No one likes being called stupid, and I realized that it was unlikely that anyone I called stupid for being more interested in Britney than in wind energy would suddenly rearrange their priorities. So I removed it… If you’d like, Robert, I can begin watering down your comments as well. How does a dollar a comment sound?

  6. mark
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 10:51 pm | Permalink

    If memory serves, GE makes most of the wind turbines in America. I’m not sure where they make them now, but I expect they’ll have to expand sometime, given the growing interest. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to have the Governor call them.

  7. Ol' E Cross
    Posted September 13, 2007 at 11:16 pm | Permalink

    “Sell the upper peninsula to Wisconsin to stay afloat.” Nice going Robert. It’s out there now. We’ll never get that cat back in the bag. You just gave state Republicans their #1 talking point next election.

    And nice try, “Robert,” everyone knows you are really just another one of my many, many pseudonyms.

  8. Posted September 14, 2007 at 11:16 am | Permalink

    I just went back and tabulated all the stupid, crazy, and obnoxious comments I’ve posted to your site*, and with a certain regularity I’ve now realized. At this rate, if I were to pay you a dollar for each one, I would need to start robbing banks…every day…main branches primarily…in Beverly Hills. I’m going to have to think about your proposal and get back to you, say in a day or two.

    As far as letting the cat out of the bag on the UP sale; what did you expect from one of your lesser pseudonyms, Ol’E Cross?

    *Oh, and by saying I was one of Mark’s pseudonyms, I didn’t mean to suggest Mark is a real person. I thought everyone here had already pretty much figured out that this whole mm.com thing is nothing more than a front for you. It’s your attempt to say publicly whatever you feel like saying, and frame some poor guy you see around town sometimes. Does this guy, the real Mark Maynard, even know this site exists? Does he know you are using it to forward your evil agenda? Should I be posting this internal dialog on my mm.com front using the ‘Robert’ pseudonym? These are all good questions I ask myself.

    Signed,
    Ol’E Cross

  9. mark
    Posted September 14, 2007 at 10:50 pm | Permalink

    I’d love to tell you all about the real Mark Maynard, but I’ve never seen him. I have to avert my eyes when I’m in his presence.

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