As I was just in Toledo for yon holiday, I thought it would be appropriate to share some good news. Seems that someone has been listening to all my ranting about how we should retool the aging American auto-industry into a solar/wind powerhouse.

Ohio’s top business booster predicted yesterday that northwest Ohio could one day be known as the solar-energy capital of the Midwest.

At the end of a year that saw more gloomy economic news locally, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, who directs the Ohio Department of Development, offered a relatively rosy forecast for the region. “I’m very optimistic about the future of the northwest Ohio economy,” he said.

Citing the presence of firms involved in development and production of more cost-efficient solar panels in metro Toledo, plans for a commercial wind farm south of Bowling Green, and construction of ethanol plants elsewhere in the region, Mr. Fisher said northwest Ohio leads the state in alternative energy ventures.

“There is no area of the state that has greater potential for creating an advanced energy cluster than northwest Ohio,” he said.(via)

This makes so much sense it hurts that they haven’t done it already. Gosh, well lets see, we have an educated workforce hungry for jobs, old manufacturing facilities sitting around doing nothing, lots of wind, a fair amount of sun, and don’t forget one of the most efficient and developed transportation facilities on the planet (you can literally go by air/train/truck/boat/horse/bicycle to almost anyplace in America from northwest Ohio easily).

The Toledo area’s history as a glass manufacturing center and the presence of leading experts in a new style of thin-film solar panels at the University of Toledo have helped create a budding solar energy industry locally, Mr. Fisher noted.

Perrysburg Township is the home of research operations and the lone U.S. production plant of Phoenix-based industry star First Solar Inc. Perrysburg also has a research and development center operated by Q-Cells AG, which is Europe’s largest solar panel producer. A UT spin-off, Xunlight Corp., is opening a solar panel plant in Toledo.

“Toledo and northwest Ohio represent the opportunity to transform what has … been known as America’s breadbasket … into America’s fuel tank,” Mr. Fisher said.

Along with solar energy, developers JW Great Lakes Wind LLC of Cleveland and American Municipal Power-Ohio plan to install a commercial wind farm near Bowling Green.

Mr. Fisher also mentioned an ethanol plant being built in Fostoria.

The Ohio Development Department’s Energy Office is studying ways that northwest Ohio’s expertise in mass production of glass – most solar panels involve chemicals sprayed on layers of glass – can be used to improve the solar industry locally, Mr. Fisher said.

The industry would get a boost from a proposal by Mr. Strickland to require that 25 percent of electricity used in Ohio be produced by renewable means by 2025, the lieutenant governor added.

Lets hope they get a move on, if there is one thing that area needs, it’s green jobs.