Too bad you can't make electricity from snow and mosquitoes....
Look for offshore wind coming your way. You've got great wind potential in the Great Lakes.
Remember, at one time we got less than 1% of our electricity from coal. Then over a few decades we installed more and more coal generation. Now we're moving away from coal. It won't happen in a decade, but we might be done with coal in two decades.
Wind was 0.5% of our national generation five years ago, now it's over 3%.
If we installed renewables at the rate of 2% of total a year (which is about what we're doing now) we could get rid of coal in about 20 years. We can up that rate quite a bit and install renewables to power transportation at the same time. Just re-purpose some of the Iraq War money, keep subsidies sweet, provide low cost financing and step back. We've got people who would love to do the work building and installing new infrastructure.
In 2009 Michigan got 4% of its power from renewables.
"By the end of 2012, a total of approximately 700 MW of new generation is planned to become commercially operational. Based on current contracts, the majority will be from wind (93%) followed by landfill gas (3%), anaerobic digesters/biomass (3%), and solar (1%). In April, 2009, five commercial wind farms were in operation with a total of 83 turbine units.8 This compares to only 35 operational turbines in 2008. Michigan has significant wind energy potential and ranks 14th in the nation among states with wind potential."
http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/mpsc/reports/energy/energyoverview/
I understand the ethanol approach, but I just can't see it ever getting as cheap per mile as electricity. The typical EV uses 0.35kWh per mile. At $0.08/kWh that's $0.028 per mile. To drive that cheaply in a liquid fuel car you'd need to get 50MPG and burn $1.40/gallon fuel.
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