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When completed in 2014, the Pampa Wind Project in northern Texas will be capable of producing 4,000 megawatts, the company said. That’s enough power for about 1.2 million average U.S. homes…
Abundant wind, open land, federal tax credits and rising electricity prices have made Texas the largest U.S. producer of electricity from wind. Mesa’s Pampa Wind Project would almost double that generating capacity…
“We’ve had a great response to this project,” Pickens said in the statement. “Landowners and local officials understand the economic benefits.”
Landowners leasing to the project will earn on average $20K/year from each wind turbine on their property.
And just to back up this kind of growth:
Spanish power company Iberdrola, the world’s largest renewable energy operator, said it plans to invest $8 billion in the United States between 2008 and 2010.
The Bilbao-based firm is aiming to have a 15 percent share of the wind power market in the US by 2010, it added in a statement.
It had a wind power production capacity of 2,400 megawatts in the US at the end of March and it expects to reach 3,600 megawatts by the end of the year, the statement added.
The Oil Patch Boys will have to find someone more impressive than timorous political mice and Know-Nothing nutballs to try to halt energy projects that turn a profit.
Go ahead. Make me feel grumpier than ever, this morning.
I live in a state where wind surveys proved the same potential as Texas a dozen years ago. The same investment potential + jobs could have come here. Except for governors and state politicians who pander to the good ol’ boys who own the public utilities for generations.
Why change when ennui still turns a minimum guaranteed profit?
I wish I could afford to put two of those big windmills on our place along with some batteries and maybe a solar array to go with it.
i am all for wind but 50 miles south west is a coal fired 1.2 gigawatt station. which one do you think will help us more in the short term to ease our dependence on foreign oil
1000 1 mega watt windmills that take 6 years to put up or 1 clean burning coal plant that makes more electricity than every windmill in Texas
think about it
Mitchell, you’re too funny. Never been in business, have you?
Yup. Pickens will wait until the last pinwheel is in place before he hooks up to the grid. Why start earning money earlier?
I’ll bet some of those tumbleweed farmers in Pampa will be getting royalty checks in a couple of years.
Pmitchell, neither of those sources will help ease our dependence on foreign oil.
Oil is used mainly for TRANSPORTATION, not energy production.
The wind farm, however, WILL help ease our reliance on FOSSIL FUELS, in general. Of course, as long as we can keep consumption under control. Or rather, keep it from getting further out of hand.
Did you note that if he didn’t have government subsidies/tax credits, there’s no way that he’d be in this business?
So, in this case, the government appears to be funding a socially useful facility (at least to me, others can rightly disagree).
However, in the case of ethanol subsidies, why is corn king? Shouldn’t more productive plants (like switchgrass) be funded instead?
In this case, the government appears misguided (a bit), by bending to political interests and actually preventing the development of even more efficient ethanol technologies.
I don’t mind the government seeding certain new technologies to help develop a market for them, but certain targeted political payoffs just don’t make economic sense.
Cutting dependence on oil could start by eliminating the unneeded traffic signals that unnecessarily stop forward motion, then require the energy to set the mass back in motion.
More big brother in control stupidity.
From people who complain about living near power plants or having oil rigs offshore. But a wind farm on your land, yessirree!
I didn’t know that Ol’ Boone complained about those things, Mike. Or is that just another delusion that lives in your head?
It is exciting to see entrepreneurship in clean energy production. The technology is there for America to not only become less fossil fuel dependent but also lead in a HUGE growth industry.
The winds of change (pun intended) are finally taking root. All that is left is to rid the nation of the Republican Nazi party and send the pin heads that voted Bush into office to exile island.
4GW for $10B, that sure makes nukes look bad, doesn’t it?
I think this is great!
#11 – Me,
Actually, thinking about this some more, the price is much higher than I’d expect for wind. Other wind projects typically have a much lower cost per megawatt. There may be some crap going on in this one.
There is already a ton of these along I-10 east of Fort Stockton, Texas. They dwarf the windmills near Palm Springs. They have been there for a few years and have already had an impact on the large Texas cities.
Irony- Windmills near the Permian Basin oil deposit and one of the most efficient nuclear power plants near the refineries of Texas City.
Those Texans aren’t waiting around; they are preparing alternative power sources. Is your state?
Dallas – I don’t have much faith that the Dems will be much better in taking steps to reduce foreign dependence. Maybe, but I doubt it. The lobbyists will have something to say. They certainly have with CAFE standards even with a Dem majority.
#14 – Sagrilarus,
Thanks for catching that. I had forgotten the cost of the land and infrastructure. I had thought that the $10G was just for the turbines. Now it makes sense.
Leased LAND???
$20K per Windmill on LEASED LAND PER YEAR?
So he gets to SHOVEL the cost of LEASE, onto the consumer, as WELL as writing it OFF on his TAXES??
2 points..
Last i heard was that MOST of northern Texas was OWNED by 1 person.
ISNT this also PART of hurricane alley??
whatever the case… while wind energy won’t get rid of the use of nukes and coal plants, i don’t see why we can’t more use the wind energy? after all, when they put some windmills near penobscot knob back in northeast pa, i actually think they beautified the formerly coal-scarred mountain that had only transmitting towers on there. those whjo say that windmills aren’t as good to look at? BS on them. I like them. I wish they could be everywhere as well as solar cells. the more we decentralize the grid, the better we’ll be.
Jim
the PROBLEM goes like this…
In the Pacific and N. atlantic that wanted to install WAVE generators just OFF the coast…
THE RICH FOLKS that OWNED the BEACH FRONT PROPERTY.. said NOPE, it would ruin the view..
The Wave turbines DIDNT get installed..
EVEN in IDAHO, 1 of the best locations is along the foot hills… IT WOULD DISTURB THE VIEW…IT AINT going to HAPPEN..
“The Oil Patch Boys will have to find someone more impressive than timorous political mice and Know-Nothing nutballs to try to halt energy projects that turn a profit.”
T. Boone Pickens is an oil patch boy.
I really don’t understand this romance with some of the so-called “green” alternatives.
When the wind isn’t blowing there’s no power generated. So for every megawatt of wind-generated power there has to be the capability of a megawatt of conventional generation available anyway. Otherwise when the wind stops you get brownouts and blackouts. Same goes for solar generation. Except solar “outages” are more predictable. They happen every night. DOH!!
If there have to be subsidies to make solar and wind generation viable, what’s the point? This isn’t new technology. If there needs to be a little assistance for R&D to improve the technologies, that probably makes some sense. But subsidizing the installation and operation for existing technology makes no sense at all.
This is just about as stupid and ill-advised as ethanol mandates and subsidies. Ethanol from ANY source makes no sense, economical or ecological.
T. Boone Pickens! That’s someone’s name?
Pickens is the guy who I referred to in an earlier thread that said the max capacity is 85 million barrels of oil per day.
Wind power is fairly limited for reasons already given, but it looks like it should be useful up to maybe 10% of capacity.
It’s actually a secret project to blow all the poluted air out of Texas, at a faster clip. Texas has some of the dirtiest air because of its oil refineries. I wonder if any of these over priced climate scientists ever bother to model what effect this kind of massive wind farm will have on climate? Will it decrease or increase the tornado count and their strength? It’s called an Environmental Impact Study. But I doubt that many of them are being done these days. They just pay off the states to let them build whatever they want. And damn the weather, flooding, polution, etc. Whenever they want to point a finger at something responsible for G.W., they point to car exhaust. But never to too much asphalt and concrete.
the oil corps want to buy something at $0.01 and sell it to you at $1-2..
THEY admit…
they ONLY reason they USE oil is “because its CHEAP”
and the reason it COSTS so much?? PROFIT..
Problem with WIND power is STOARGE during windy times to COVEr those days of NO WIND..
#23 – ken in regina,
Never heard of energy storage? Batteries? Hydrogen (not a fuel source, but can be a battery)? How about heating water and storing hot water in a large container, preferably underground? This last can be used to start with already hot water for the turbine and use a much smaller amount of fossil or nuclear fuel to heat the water the last few degrees to turn the turbine. Admittedly, this works better for solar water heat than wind, but it is yet another energy storage means.
One interesting suggestion has been fleets of electric cars plugged into the grid to be charged or discharged as an energy leveling mechanism. The batteries in everyone’s cars would become part of the energy storage means. Of course, the auto owners would pay for the energy for charging and be paid for the discharged energy back onto the grid. Whether the rate would be the same in both directions or a tad higher on the way back out to the grid to compensate for the loss in charging and discharging is not a topic I’ve heard anything about. But, the technology can work if we can get the kinks out of the economics of it.
Wind power and solar are useful because they tend to gernate their biggest output in the afternoon, when peak demand hits.
But they are only part of the answer. You still need the base load nuke and coal plants to keep things running smoothly.
Looking out 500 years, what then. I know we won’t be there, but what about our descendents. It’s short sighted thinking that has the world in the pickle it is in now. Something must be developed to produce all of our electical and transportation needs or the world will descend into WAR, FAMINE, and PESTILENCE.
It’s too bad that the oil companies have so much control of Congress. We should be funding MASSIVE research into renewable energy. I still think the magic bullet will be hot fusion.
Don
29, MS..
there is NO facility/faculty that can store the required Needs of this nation.
IF we could harness the winds in a Tornado/hurricane and STORE the power for our NEEDS…YOU could fill in a BLANK CHECK with any amount you wish.
I would EVAC every man woman and child from Florida to create such a Power plant, and storage facility…
Unless we start using a lot less power wind and solar are never going to be more than part of the answer. They can be a huge help.
Using biomass as fuel is okay but you are pretty much burning what could be used as food or used to grow food and the last I read this has a staggering carbon foot print.
It is my understanding they are building the first test switch grass biofuel plant now. Unless you can use the stalk corn is not a great source of fuel. Removing the biomass from fields has negatives. You need compost to help soil hold water. Some modern farm practices make me wonder.
32,
true…
bUT HAVE YOU LOOKED AT THE COST of 12 volt Goods…?
12 volt STOVE, 12 volt HEATERS, 12 volt FRIG/freezer, 12 volt WATER HEATERS???
they cost 2-4 times as Much as 110 models..