(Columbus, OH) Ohio remains in the top ten for wind energy, despite regulatory roadblocks from state lawmakers.
Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur once called Northwest Ohio "the Saudi Arabia of wind" during the dedication of a wind turbine outside an Oregon school several years ago.
But you won't find any additions to the big wind farms along the rural landscape of the Ohio-Indiana border. But there still appears to be demand for such small wind energy installations to power factories and small businesses.
Whirlpool has turbines that help power its dishwasher factory in Findlay. Last year, the amount of new wind energy from small-scale projects in the state came mainly from one installation, a turbine developed at a Findlay-based Marathon Petroleum pipeline pump station.
Yet Ohio ranks sixth for the amount of megawatts installed since 2003 in a new report from the U.S. Department of Energy.