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Winds die for T. Boone Pickens’ Texas project
July 7, 2009 - Cleantech Group best of the web pick
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T. Boone Pickens is axing plans to build what was expected to be the world’s largest wind farm, according to the Dallas Morning News.
The Texas billionaire and oil baron said he plans to instead build a handful of smaller wind farms in the Midwest. Potential highlighted locations include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, according to the New York Times.
Previously, Pickens attributed his delayed wind plans to financial difficulties being faced by the country’s wind farms, compounded by the decline in natural gas prices. However, the world’s largest wind farm has reportedly been scaled back due to constraints with Texas building transmission lines, dubbed the Panhandle Loop, to carry power to the state’s main grid.
The lines are not planned to go where Pickens had hoped. Pickens' company Mesa Power was among several companies that originally put in a bid to the state's public utility commission to build the transmission lines (see Wind power going strong down south).
The shelved massive wind farm, with as many as 2,000 turbines on nearly 200,000 acres in four counties, was set to be located in the Texas Panhandle region. The project would have had the capacity to generate 2,000 to 4,000 megawatts and was anticipated to cost as much as $6 billion, including transmission lines (see New Texas loop to connect renewables to grid).
In 2008, Sydney, Australia-based investor Babcock & Brown said it planned to construct at least 1,000 MW of wind power in the Panhandle Loop (see Babcock & Brown starts 80 MW Texas wind farm). However, Babcock & Brown sold off all its assets after declaring insolvency in March 2009.
In June, Riverstone Holdings and the North American Energy Group acquired Babcock & Brown's renewable energy portfolio. Now renamed Pattern Energy Group, based in San Francisco, the company has several wind projects in development in Texas. The company has a pipeline of 4 gigawatts of projects in the U.S. and Latin America.
Source:
New York Times
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Comments
use my place???
Submitted on July 7th, 2009 by Peter Holmes (not verified)How can I help on my 1600 acre ranch?
Boone Pickens and Wind Energy
Submitted on July 8th, 2009 by dave (not verified)Boone has a good idea, He is just looking in the wrong place. 80% of our people live within 150 miles of the coast. The wind always blows on the coast. This is due to temperature differences between the land and ocean. Ideally wind farms will be place on the coast where most of our people live and a back up system is not needed. If our coastal citizens rely on Wind energy, the conventional energy sources can be used in the interior and places that do not lend themselves to wind energy. This will greatly reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and reduce the pollution that goes with fossil fuels. When demand for fossil fuel is reduced the price will likely fall.
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