Wide Open Spaces for Wind | Green Energy News

May 23, 2008 – Vol.13 No.9

WIDE OPEN SPACES FOR WIND.

It’s OK for oil man T. Boone Pickens to build a mega wind farm in the vast, sparsely populated Texas Panhandle. There are few to complain. Relatively few will ever see it. The Not In My Back Yard factor is low. But build wind farms with skyscraper-high turbines in sight, and within earshot, of communities? Expect some backlash from the locals. And they might have a point. They have to live with it.

Some citizens in the town of Prattsburgh, New York have been fighting a wind project – Prattsburgh Wind – for five years. According to National Wind Watch, in the latest move to see the wind farm built the Town Board resolved to authorize condemnation proceedings against eight specific landowners and against "any other property" along several named roads to secure easements for transmission lines needed by the wind power project being developed by First Wind (formerly UPC Wind).

National Wind Watch (NWW), an advocacy group established in 2005 to promote knowledge and raise awareness of the negative environmental and social impacts of industrial wind energy development, has been urging stakeholders and concerned individuals to make their voices heard regarding the wind project. The group fears that the town fathers of Prattsburgh could set a precedent that may have a grave impact on all towns in New York State that are resisting not just wind development but any other kind of exploitation.

The group also says that First Wind has never proven the positive impact the wind farm will have on the town. Pickens’ company has done so for his project in Texas. The positive economic impact of Pampa Wind, as it’s known, is expected to be considerable.

In an economic impact study, commissioned by Mesa Power, Resource Economics Inc. , projects that Pampa would generate an estimated 1,500 jobs during the construction phase, and 720 during a typical year of operation; personal income in the project investment zone will rise by $68.7 million per year during the construction phase, and $120 million during operation. The more significant impact during the operation phase is largely due to lease payments to be made to landowners in the project area amounting to $65.3 million per year.

Resource Economics, of Austin, Texas, also estimates that the total value of economic output in the region due to the project will be $380 million per year during the construction phase and $1.6 billion per year during the operation period, and additions to the tax rolls of school districts in the project investment zone will amount to $2.4 billion by 2018, assuming the school districts approve an application to limit appraisal values during the project's first 10 years.

Pampa, when fully built, will be a 4000 megawatt wind farm on 400,000 acres in Carson, Gray, Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler counties. The first of four phases is expected to be complete by 2011, the other phases by 2014. Pampa Wind will generate enough energy for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes.

The $2 billion first phase will have 667 1.5 MW turbines from General Electric which Mesa has ordered. Everything is big about the project, The order for the turbines is world's largest single-site wind turbine purchase to date.

Pickens, with a legacy as an oil and natural gas man, is skeptical about the future of oil and appreciates the power of wind. "You find an oilfield, it peaks and starts declining, and you've got to find another one to replace it," said Pickens, who once operated one of the largest independent oil and gas production companies. "It can drive you crazy. With wind, there's no decline curve."

Pampa Wind is not the only wind project planned or under development in the center section of the United States. Virtually all of the states in the nation’s midsection from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River have good to moderate to excellent wind resources according the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). States and wind developers in that region know this and are pursuing more wind development. Wind turbine companies too recognize the potential and are setting up shops there.

The fastest way – the course of least resistance – to bring wind energy to the populated coastal regions may be the construction of a series of transmission lines while accepting the inevitable power line losses. If transmission lines can be envisioned to bring solar and wind energy from North Africa to Europe why not power lines to bring renewable energy from the center of the US to its coasts?.

There are plenty of windy, wide open spaces in the US to build wind power plants. Focusing there would bring more wind energy to the rest of the country sooner than later. We need it sooner.

Links:

First Wind
http://www.upcwind.com

Prattsburgh Wind
http://www.prattsburghwind.com

National Wind Watch
http://www.wind-watch.org

AWEA: Top 20 States with Wind Energy Resource Potential
http://www.awea.org/newsroom/
pdf/Top_20_States_with_Wind_Energy_Potential.pdf

American Wind Energy Association (AWEA): New U.S. Dept. of Energy Report Finds Wind Can Provide 20% of U.S. Electricity Needs by 2030.

Vestas to Build World’s Largest Wind Turbine Tower Plant in Colorado; Continues Global Expansion.

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