It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region,

and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen. Lake Michigan is a crown jewel of our region.

Come summertime, it's the place to be. And it has a lot of power.

Question asker, Lisa Braganza was thinking about the lake when she was driving back to Chicago

from Nashville. She drove past a bunch of beautiful windmills in downstate Illinois.

Those wind turbines make up about 13% of Illinois power generation. So it got her

wondering. We're the windy city. How come we don't have windmills and wind turbines in our very windy Lake Michigan?

Reporter Juan Pablo Ramirez Franco picks up the question.

Lisa's not alone.

People have been asking the same question for a while.

Before we answer that question, we asked Melissa Scanlan, why put him in the lake in the first place?

She's a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

She studies issues about the Great Lakes, including offshore wind.

She said that wind that whips over Lake Michigan is more consistent, stronger, and less turbulent than its land-based counterpart. That's a big deal because it could mean more electricity.

Five out of the eight Great Lakes states have offshore wind potential

that goes far beyond what their annual electricity consumption is for their entire state.

Scanlan said there's huge potential in the Great Lakes, and it almost happened.

During the aughts, there was a surge in excitement for offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes,

especially because the federal government has limited say about what happens on the lakes,

which makes an opening for states to forge their

own clean energy paths. They can if they choose to. If they choose not to, then nothing happens.

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