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After months of delays due to financing difficulties, T. Boone Pickens is walking away from a plan to build the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. While money played a large part in the decision, the nail in the coffin came from an announcement that $5 million worth of new transmission lines for wind energy in Texas were not going to be built anywhere near the planned site of the wind farm.
Pickens originally planned to build his own transmission lines as well, but tough economic times have scaled back his ambition.
The good news is that Pickens and his team still plan to develop smaller wind farms around the Midwest, including spots in Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Kansas, and Texas.
While Pickens is an unlikely eco-hero, we've been rooting for him to get these big projects up and running. We can only hope that these setbacks aren't permanent and we'll see the return of his large-scale wind energy plans in the near future.
via Green Inc.
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written by Teresa, July 08, 2009
http://www.businessweek.com/ma...017753.htm
Did he ever really intend to go through with the wind farm or was it just a distraction from the water issue?
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written by Bob Wallace, July 09, 2009
"Pickens tells Robert Siegel that tight credit markets and the absence of transmission lines, which would carry wind energy from the turbines to the grid, made the postponement necessary. But, he says, the turbines and financing will be available in 2011, and the transmission will be up by 2013.
"So, it'll all fit together," he says. "We'll just be a couple of years behind schedule.""
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106397688
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written by Starting a Green Business, July 09, 2009
Hopefully in 2011 it gets back on track.
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written by tim Sindt, July 13, 2009
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written by supra shoes, July 14, 2009
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written by Matt Peffly, July 15, 2009
"A very quick note to discuss one issue with you: my wind farm project in Pampa, Texas. There have been a lot of media stories about it, many of which misinterpreted my future plans. I want to be very clear with you that I am delaying, not cancelling, the project.
This misreporting is no doubt being fueled by those aggressively trying to convince Congress and the American public that wind and solar power can’t contribute significantly to solving our energy problems. They are wrong."
Or in Bloomberg article
"The so-called Pampa project will be postponed until 2013 when Texas is expected to complete a $4.9 billion transmission line, Pickens said in Washington today. News reports yesterday that he was ending the project are wrong, he said."
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But the silver lining is: there are still lots of good wind projects planned elsewhere. Its hard for me to believe that Pickens expected some other company to deliver his wind power to the grid without a solid transmission plan of his own - especially considering the scale of his project. I was a fan of his plan, but its disappointing that transmission wasn't something he could get done. Once again, lack of transmission is the killer, and is proving to be the most important factor when siting/ planning new wind facilties (or any large industrial facility for that matter). It is very expensive and time consuming to make new lines. I work in wind energy development, and I'm seeing this over and over again, that we are lacking the t-lines to get the job done at the scale that is needed. In the meantime, it is up to small scale wind and solar to fill in... that is, if the small scale market doesn't take over in the near future and make all of this infrastructure planning obsolete. I personally hope so, because this transmission issue isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Game on!