For years we have branded Duluth as the gateway to the Midwest and North America’s heartland. And while the term gateway best describes the geographic importance the Midwest has played in developing our Port for international cargoes, the vast region we serve has never had the population or the manufacturing muscle to push the Port to its full potential.

Yet today it is prairies and farm lands that are defining the Port as a new gateway to America’s wind belt. The exponential growth in wind farms, from Illinois to Montana and Kansas to Manitoba, has created excitement — a “wind rush,” if you will — to develop wind farms in some of the most highly valued locations in North America.

Global warming is the overriding issue that now moves this nation and the world to look to renewable energy to satisfy some of our future energy needs. And what makes this commercially appealing in our region are federal renewable energy subsidies, larger more efficient wind turbines designs and state-mandated renewable energy programs.

Minnesota just this year passed legislation requiring that 25 percent of the state’s electricity must come from renewable sources by 2025. Wind turbines will be required to meet approximately 90 percent of this capacity and will require the construction of almost 2,500 turbines. Similar action is pending or already exists in other states.

But for the Midwest, the key drivers are vast, lightly populated areas of wind (America’s farmlands) that can accept and in many cases welcome both visual and noise pollution associated with wind electric generation. Wind is the farmer’s next cash crop, second only to ethanol.

In the past 12 months, the Port of Duluth-Superior has begun the process of establishing itself as one of North America’s premier ports for handling and distributing wind energy cargoes. Over the past three years the Port has been introduced to the wind energy market and has handled international wind energy components. As of mid-May, the Clure Public Marine Terminal’s operator, Lake Superior Warehousing Co., was expecting 15 ships for 2007 carrying wind energy cargoes of 175,000 revenue tons and had quoted rates for an additional 27 ships carrying more than 400,000 revenue tons. These shipments include blades, nacelles, power units, controllers, hubs and tower sections destined for projects in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois. Additionally the Clure Terminal will handle 48 tower bases destined for Buffalo, New York. These bases were manufactured in Fargo, North Dakota, by a subsidiary of Otter Tail Power.

Rapidly changing market forces require shippers to build flexibility and agility into their networks. This has a big impact on strategies for locating distribution centers. For Duluth, this is driven by cost effective waterborne access to global suppliers, competitive advantage in land transportation to major wind energy markets, a skilled and reliable workforce and community support and acceptance of permitted truck cargoes.

Major trucking companies moving wind cargoes from the Port have gone on record saying, “Duluth is the most user friendly and productive port we have hauled out of” and that scheduling and access greatly enhance turnaround and productivity. (Some of the specialty trailers used to transport wind turbine components are valued at more than $1 million each.)

The map on Page 10 illustrates why our Port is playing a major role in wind energy development. In a ranking of the top 10 states for future wind energy potential, the American Wind Energy Association has ranked seven of our Midwest states in the top 10 and three in the top five. North Dakota alone could supply about one-third of the nation’s electricity.

While the Port will continue to share in this growth, we also need to look at our region as a strategically positioned area for manufacturing wind turbine components. Last year the wind energy market grew at a 32 percent annual rate despite supply chain challenges. New wind turbine components manufacturing plants are being built throughout the world, including the United States.

A site in the Duluth area could not only serve our domestic market but the international market as well by taking advantage of ships currently calling on the Port to export to the developing world market.