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Two new utilities have joined a group of existing Texas transmission owners seeking state approval to build more than $5 billion in new power lines needed to tap the state's abundant wind generation. The group will file a detailed proposal of its construction plan with the Texas Public Utility Commission on Friday, according to a press release. New lines are needed to move electricity from the state's windiest areas in the west to power-hungry cities. The commission wants to see enough new transmission to accommodate about 18,500 megawatts of wind generation by 2012. The existing transmission operator group includes Dallas-based...

Federal authorities may unravel a tiny Panhandle government with far-reaching powers. The U.S. Department of Justice blocked changes to Texas law that last fall helped create the board of the Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District, a body dominated by employees of Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. Losing the district's authority could complicate Pickens' most visible means so far of running pipeline and power line infrastructure across the state. Jay Rosser, spokesman for Pickens' Mesa Water, said the decision as Mesa officials understood it did little to change the board or plans to move massive water and wind energy resources...

Interviews with architects, engineers and energy experts on Wednesday suggest that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to place wind turbines atop the city’s skyscrapers and bridges, as well as off the coastline of Queens and Brooklyn, would be complicated and expensive and barely begin to meet the growth in demand for electricity that is expected in the coming years. “The smaller turbines that he’s talking about almost don’t pay in terms of kilowatts per hour produced,” said Daniel Karpen, a Long Island engineering consultant who has studied the feasibility of wind power. “He’s going to need money to build them,...

Mayor Bloomberg is proposing a "green" plan that has the potential to drastically change the New York City skyline and shores. It's part of his effort to make New York the most energy efficient city in the nation. The mayor's "windmill power plan" is the boldest environmental proposal yet from the billionaire independent, who has been trying to make energy efficiency a legacy of his administration. Speaking at a major conference on alternative energy Tuesday night in Las Vegas, Bloomberg proposed putting windmills on top of city bridges, and skyscrapers, and turbines in the Hudson and East Rivers. In terms...

NYC's Mayor Bloomberg yesterday proposed to develop wind turbines atop the Big Apple's bridges and skyscrapers. The mayor also tossed out the possibility of building wind farms way out in the Atlantic Ocean, miles from shore, that he said could generate roughly twice the energy of similar land-based facilities and supply 10 percent of the city's electricity needs within a decade...

In this year's great energy debate, Democrats describe a future when the U.S. finally embraces the anything-but-carbon avant-garde. It turns out, however, that when wind and solar power do start to come on line, they face a familiar obstacle: environmentalists and many Democrats. To wit, the greens are blocking the very transmission network needed for renewable electricity to move throughout the economy. The best sites for wind and solar energy happen to be in the sticks -- in the desert Southwest where sunlight is most intense for longest, or the plains where the wind blows most often. To exploit this...

In this year's great energy debate, Democrats describe a future when the U.S. finally embraces the anything-but-carbon avant-garde. It turns out, however, that when wind and solar power do start to come on line, they face a familiar obstacle: environmentalists and many Democrats. To wit, the greens are blocking the very transmission network needed for renewable electricity to move throughout the economy. The best sites for wind and solar energy happen to be in the sticks -- in the desert Southwest where sunlight is most intense for longest, or the plains where the wind blows most often. To exploit this...

Usually when you argue with liberals, you can start winning right off the bat by denying the premise of their argument. On energy, their premise is that wind power is pure, clean energy, harnessing mother nature with no downside at all. After all it is just a breeze, which we like on hot summer days, and other than lifting loosely glued toupees and bad comb-overs, it is harmless. Right? Well we don't get wind power from pin-wheels. We get it from thousands of huge, industrial grade wind turbines, which, for the dim bulbs on the left, are machines.

Hundreds of giant turbines in the Oregon desert will bring power, but residents nearby raise concerns about health effects and an end to their quiet way of life BOARDMAN -- Sherry Eaton pulled into the driveway of her rural, high-desert home to see one of several giant wind turbines being assembled a half-mile away. "I started to cry," Eaton, 57, recalled of her first sight of the Willow Creek Wind Project in late July. "They're going to be hanging over the back of our house, and now there's the medical thing." "The medical thing" is new research suggesting that living...

Webb is a senior scientist with the University of Virginia's Department of Environmental Sciences. His Web site, www.VaWind.org, addresses environmental issues associated with commercial wind energy development. Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is being disingenuous, telling one thing to the American people and another to Congress. He has repeatedly said that no government help is needed to pursue his plan to build the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. Yet he is lobbying hard for extension of the Production Tax Credit and National Renewable Energy Zones -- essentially a huge tax shelter for wind industry investors and expedited...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently called congressional Republicans who want up-or-down drilling votes "hand maidens of the oil companies." Let's call Pelosi what she is: House girl of the Big Wind boondogglers.

eek, Pelosi refuses to consider GOP energy proposals that don't include massive government subsidies for so-called eco-alternatives that have never panned out. Which brings us to Madame Speaker's 2007 financial disclosure form. Schedule III lists "Assets and 'Unearned Income'" of between $100,001-$250,000 from Clean Energy Fuels Corp. -- Public Common Stock. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE) is a natural gas provider founded by T. Boone Pickens. Yep, that T. Boone Pickens -- former oilman turned wind-power evangelist whose ads touting a national wind campaign are now as ubiquitous as Viagra promos. Pickens and Pelosi share the same talking points downplaying...

Pickens Gives New Meaning to "Self-Government" By Steven Milloy The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens’ plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say and do just about anything to make another billion or two. This column previously discussed the plan’s technical and economic shortcomings and marketing ruses. Today, we’ll look into the diabolical machinations behind it. Simply put, Pickens’ pitch is “embrace wind power to help break our ‘addiction’ to foreign oil.” There is, however, another intriguing component to Pickens’ plan that goes unmentioned in his TV commercials, media...

I was just looking at the task of providing wind power to according to T Boone Pickens Plan. It is not a pretty picture. But here is a try at it. TX power Requirement (MW) 104,754 MW Amount of Wind Power Desired 20.00% MW of Wind 20950.8 MW Area per Megawatt 0.02 MW/Acre Efficiency 35.00% percent Sq Miles Wind Power 2992971.4 Acres Acres / Sq MIle 640 SqMi/A Actual Sq Miles Req 4676.52 sq miles Distance from Minot ND to Big Bend TX 1300 miles Width of Corridor 3.60 miles Watts per Tower 1.5 MW Quantity towers 13,967 units Cost...

As North Texans sweltered through another 100-degree-plus day, the windmills around Sweetwater turned lazily in the West Texas breeze, generating enough electricity to power about 250,000 homes. It’s not much — barely 1 percent of the peak electricity demand Monday for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operator of the transmission grid for about 75 percent of the state. But it’s about what is expected from the state’s wind-power industry, by far the nation’s largest, during the dog days of summer, when temperatures climb but wind speeds dip on the West Texas plains. "In general, wind’s peak energy does not...

...developers are looking to build more than 100 wind turbines taller than the Statue of Liberty, side by side, on 18 miles of the George Washington National Forest. FreedomWorks, a company with projects in four states, wants to generate electricity for the power-hungry Washington area and beyond, despite concerns about disturbing wildlife, spoiling untouched lands and creating noise and light pollution. As the United States searches for ways to lessen its dependency on foreign oil, wind energy is getting a second look in states such as Virginia that had not embraced it. The national push, along with new state financial...

What's in store for America when most of its electricity is generated by the sun and wind? Trouble, turmoil and tyranny. With more than 125 wind farms, England is many years ahead of us when it comes to alternative power. But it has just as many NIMBYs per capita as America, and theirs detest wind farms. A 2007 government-commissioned study found upward of three-quarters of people living within 1.2 miles of "condor Cuisanarts" say the loud whooshing sound the blades make is ruining their health and quality of life. But their biggest complaint was about falling property values. More than...

Breaking news about breaking wind: the world's oldest joke is a one-liner about flatulence, researchers say. Academics have compiled a list of the most ancient gags and the oldest, harking back to 1900BC, is a Sumerian proverb from what is now southern Iraq. "Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband's lap," goes the joke. Randy pharaohs, thirsty ox-drivers and barbers also feature in the list. The oldest British joke dates back to the 10th Century, and uses the traditional question and answer format to suggestively poke fun at Anglo-Saxon men....

Cutting photocopier costs was once Randall Swisher's top concern, now it's redrawing the United States' power grid into a $60 billion superhighway. When Swisher became executive director of the industry group the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) in 1989, he had four employees and fuel was cheap. So the energy business largely ignored him. Ten years ago, cutting office costs topped the agenda. Swisher commissioned American Electric Power (AEP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the country's largest electricity transmitter and one of its largest power generators, to map how a new national network of power lines could potentially distribute wind...

The precipitous rise in oil and gas prices over the past year has made the debate on greenhouse gas emissions moot. The reduction in the output of those gases will move forward at warp speed, not because of rules, regulations and cap-and-trade decrees but because of free markets and economics. (...) How have we come to this point? Blame it on oil prices and technology. The extraordinary increase in the price of hydrocarbons and coal has created a price umbrella under which competing technologies can flourish. (...) Today, wind energy is economic at about 7 cents per kilowatt hour. (...)...

They Call the Wind Energy by: Jeff Waldmann, July 29, 2008 The solutions to the energy crisis and relief for unemployment woes can all be found across the pond in Europe, according to a July 22 panel at the Center for American Progress. The panel, including two U.S. experts on both alternative energy and green building and two European officials, discussed energy policy in great detail, and were particularly interested in the application of alternative energy policy in Europe here in the United States. While the event promised to be a discussion of solutions to global warming, and the policies...

If you watch cable TV, chances are you've seen an ad promoting T. Boone Pickens' plan for reducing the vast sums we're spending on imported oil. Hearts quickened in the Democratic Party because Mr. Pickens says in the ad: "this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of." That's what Democrats say when they block drilling off our coasts and in Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. But the budding romance cooled when Mr. Pickens made it clear he supports lifting those drilling bans. Mr. Pickens' plan has two key elements. The first is to build a massive series of...

Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain travelled to Oregon in mid-May to deliver the definitive climate change speech of his campaign. He spoke in Portland, at the U.S. headquarters of Vestas Wind Systems AS, a Danish company that markets wind turbines around the world. He started on a self-deprecating note. “Today is a kind of test run for this company,” he said. “They've got wind technicians here, wind studies and all these wind turbines. But there's no wind. So now I know why they asked me to come and give a speech.” It was perhaps his most perceptive statement of...

Commercial fishermen are reverting to wind power in response to soaring fuel prices, as skippers rig their boats with auxiliary sails to cut the amount of diesel they use. The move comes as a new generation of vessels is being developed that will rely almost exclusively on sails. Higher fuel costs threaten to force many fishermen out of business. The price of the red diesel the industry uses has doubled in less than a year, while fish prices have remained relatively stable. advertisement Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, said a number of skippers were...

What's gotten into T. Boone Pickens? Apparently, a lot of wind and gas. Anyone who has watched any amount of cable television lately has seen his commercial, which concludes: "I've been an oil man my life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. I have a plan..."Not only does he have a plan, but Pickens also has a flair for the theatrical. He has adopted the Deomocrat talking point that "we can't drill our way out of this" and is repeating it every time the ad airs, which, if the Fox News Channel is any...

I’ve always found it tough to get too mad at T. Boone Pickens. Sure, just a few years ago he warned the world that we are at or close to Peak Oil — while simultaneously making billions of dollars betting on oil futures. Which led some to make specific comments during Congressional testimony, to the effect that his public doomsaying was a posture designed to drive the market for oil — and therefore his personal profits — higher. [snip] Boone wants America on wind-generated electricity — to solve "our oil problems." [snip] Because wind farms are an unreliable source for...

Al Gore today called for replacing all carbon based electric power generation with alternative forms, primarily wind, solar, and geothermal in the next ten years...I pulled up these Intellicast wind maps a few hours after he delivered his speech. They cover the entire eastern portion of the country at 10PM EDT. Seems to be a problem. It’s night (no solar) and there’s no wind. It happens!

Quick! What state symbolizes the old petroleum economy? Texas, of course. Now, what state leads the way towards a future of clean, renewable wind energy? Texas again! By early 2008, Texas had installed more than 5,300 megawatts of wind production -- more than twice second place state California -- and had another 2,000 megawatts under production. Why in the name of Sam Houston is the state of Spindletop messing with wind?

I don't find this by search, had just seen it on Fox. He's not tilting Obama is he?

Cannot post. Here is the link:http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-08-t-boone-pickens-plan-wind-energy_N.htm?cs

Research: Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought'Windfarm output is never zero. Sometimes it's less' By Lewis Page Published Thursday 3rd July 2008 10:02 GMT Fresh contenders have entered the UK wind power debate, as a turbines expert funded by the Renewable Energy Foundation publishes an investigation into a hotly-disputed subject - the variability in output to be expected of a large UK windfarm base. In a just-released article for the journal Energy Policy, titled Will British weather provide reliable electricity?, consulting engineer Jim Oswald and his co-authors model the output to be expected from a large, 25+ gigawatt...

With Columbia Gorge turbines pumping out extra electricity, the agency had to quickly adjust its hydro generation Columbia Basin river managers had a close call this week when they were forced to cut back on hydropower after a surge in wind energy blasted through the system. The surge forced them to spill more water over dams, risking the health of migrating fish. For the first time, it also exposed serious kinks in a plan that was supposed to deal smoothly with just such emergencies. As it turned out, the spills weren't heavy enough to harm fish. But the federal Bonneville...

The UK government has committed itself to some ambitious green energy plans. It sounds good, but is it all hot air? Eoin Gleeson reports Why the scramble for wind power? Pressure from Europe. Last year, Britain made a commitment to meet 15% of its total energy consumption from renewable energy by 2020. But with all but one of the UK’s ten remaining nuclear stations facing closure over the next 15 years, Britain will also have to replace 40% of its generating capacity over the next six to eight years. So the Government is hoping to stave off blackouts by boosting...

Wind farms are springing up in Midwestern fields, along Appalachian ridgelines, and even in Texas backyards. They're everywhere, it seems, except in the windy coastal waters that lap at some of America's largest, most power-hungry cities. That's partly because the first large-scale effort to harness sea breezes in the U.S. hit resistance from an army led by the rich and famous, waging a not-on-my-beach campaign. For almost eight years the critics have stalled the project, called Cape Wind, which aims to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound about five miles south of Cape Cod. Yet surprisingly, Cape Wind has largely...

It may be less efficient and more intrusive than other forms of alternative energy, but harnessing the power of wind is “every bit as serious” as other options, according to MSNBC “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. “This [supporting corn-based ethanol] is a problem, not Obama’s best thing, but you know nuclear – there is this notion on the right that nuclear is serious and wind is not,” Krugman said on Olbermann’s show June 25. “But the fact of the matter, given what we know, wind is every bit as serious, and maybe more so,...

Court Rules In Favor Of Cape Wind by NAW Staff on Tuesday 24 June 2008 Barnstable Superior Court Judge Robert Kane has allowed motions by Cape Wind and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to dismiss four of five counts that had been filed by the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and the town of Barnstable against the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind project. "The court rejected the opponents' primary argument and agreed that Massachusetts agency review was proper," says Cape Wind president Jim Gordon. "We look forward to providing the public with the benefits of Cape Wind, including cleaner air, more...

GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE, has unveiled a study estimating that the federal tax incentive for wind energy projects, which is set to expire Dec. 31, more than pays for itself through tax revenues from the projects' income, vendors' profits and individual workers' wages. The study, released at the American Council on Renewable Energy's Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York, estimates that wind farms built in 2007, supported by the production tax credit (PTC), carry a net present value benefit to the U.S. Treasury of $250 million. "Congress is debating how to pay for the wind...

Wind and nuclear power plants have the lowest potential impact on wildlife among the major U.S. electricity sources, according to a report examining several decades of research. Taking into account the entire life cycle of a power project — from extraction of the fuel through plant construction, operation and shutdown — the risks to wildlife ranged from low to medium for wind and nuclear, according to Christian Newman, president of Florida-based Pandion Systems. Newman's firm did the study for New York state officials this year and discussed the findings at the American Wind Energy Association's annual conference, which concluded Wednesday...

Oil and gas may be the prime mover in Houston's economy, but a growing wind power business is proving there's more than one way to spell "energy" in the Bayou City. Houston is already home to a handful of major wind power project developers, including those owned by oil and gas giants BP and Shell, thanks in large part to the state's ample wind resources, renewable energy incentives created by lawmakers and competitive power markets. And the industry blew this way again Monday when Dutch powerhouse Vestas Wind Systems said it will open its first U.S. research and development facility...

Dallas-based Mesa Power LLP, a company created by energy executive T. Boone Pickens, has placed an order with GE to purchase 667 wind turbines capable of generating 1,000 MW. GE plans to deliver the 1.5 MW wind turbines in 2010 and 2011. The agreement represents the first phase of the four-phase Pampa Wind Project that will become the world's largest wind energy project, with an expected capacity of more than 4,000 MW. When all phases of the project are completed as projected in 2014, the wind farm will be five times as big as the nation's current largest wind power...

HARTFORD, Conn. — A renewable energy company founded by billionaire Boone Pickens said today it's buying 667 wind turbines from General Electric to start what it expects will be the world's largest wind energy project in the Texas Panhandle. Mesa Power says the Pampa Wind Project will use GE turbines that can each produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity. The project's $2 billion first phase — one of four planned — will make enough to power more than 300,000 average U.S. homes. When completed in 2014, it will become the world's largest wind energy project, with more than 4,000 megawatts of...

Centrica warns on wind farm costsCentrica, one of the UK's biggest energy generators, has warned that the prospect of making money from wind farms is looking "marginal". The company says that the rising cost of off-shore wind farms could end up ruining the government's renewable energy targets. The comments come a week after Shell withdrew from a project that was set to become the world's largest wind farm. The government wants 33 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity built by 2020. Mr Sambhi, Centrica's director of power business unit, says the firm is still planning to build three new wind farms...

Who knew a “free� source of energy could be so expensive? The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) recently estimated that billions of dollars in investment will be needed to transmit wind-generated electricity from the areas of Texas most suitable for wind generation — West Texas and the Panhandle — to the areas of the state that need energy the most — the I-35 corridor and the upper Gulf Coast. These costs will be borne by Texas ratepayers. How did this happen? Subsidies, incentives, and renewable energy mandates have paved the way for Texas’ wind-energy boom. Today, Texas leads the...

Earth Day 2008 is an opportunity to celebrate the progress we've made toward building a cleaner future for our world — more importantly, it is a time to rededicate ourselves to facing and solving the problems that continue to threaten the long-term health of our environment. None of those challenges is more critical than the need to find new and "greener" ways to help meet global energy demands. The world's thirst for energy continues unabated. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, global demand for all forms of energy is expected to grow by 54 percent between now and the...

CHICAGO — A gust of wind blew a 2-year-old in a stroller into Lake Michigan, where the boy remained submerged for at least 15 minutes before being pulled out unconscious but alive. The child's grandfather, who had been pushing the stroller on the lakeside Friday afternoon, jumped into the harbor to try to save the boy, the Chicago Fire Department said. Witnesses said the frantic grandfather struggled in the frigid water, just off a 70-foot long pier, pointing a few feet away and shouting, "Child! Child!" "He was just moaning in the breakwater, crying," said

Alternative energy source continues to cause controversy Technology is wonderful. Someone dreams up an idea, and pretty soon it's a multibillion-dollar industry, generating wealth and jobs. Take the locomotive, the automobile, the personal computer. Take the nuclear-powered airplane, the personal rocket pack, the aircraft carrier built out of an iceberg. Well, no, better not take those last three. Plenty was spent on their development, but they now rest on the scrap heap of history. This is what people in the electricity generating industry mean when they refer to coal and gas and even nuclear-fueled power plants as "proven baseload power"...

Thursday, April 17, 2008 Scheduling Wind Power Better wind forecasts could prevent blackouts and reduce pollution. By Peter Fairley As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose. To address the problem, power-grid operators are combining hyper-local meteorological data and artificial intelligence to predict when the wind turbines installed on their networks will turn. This month, New York's Independent System Operator (NYISO)...

The tiny, endangered Indiana bat lives on Shaffer Mountain in northeastern Somerset County and that should be enough to keep 30 big wind turbines off that ecologically sensitive Appalachian ridge, according to three environmental groups. The groups -- Sensible Wind Solutions, Mountain Laurel Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Allegheny Plateau Audubon Society -- yesterday served the Spanish-owned wind power company, Gamesa Energy, with a notice of intent to sue under the federal Endangered Species Act. According to the notice, the site where the 404-foot tall turbines and 18 miles of service roads would be built on 22,000 acres of...

… Last year, 400-foot-tall wind turbines were erected near King City, some less than 2,000 feet from Charlie Porter’s house on his small acreage. Soon the sounds from the blades swooshing through the air and other noise were driving Porter and his family crazy, he said. “The sound gets in your head like a saw and you can’t get rid of it,” Porter said. “Some people compare it to a train that never arrived.” … Just how healthy is the noise from wind turbines? … One researcher calls it “wind turbine syndrome,” a collection of symptoms that include headaches, anxiety...

Hooking up the state's largest cities to rapidly expanding wind power projects in West Texas could cost as much as $6.3 billion in the coming years, the state's grid operator says. In a report this week to the state Public Utility Commission, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees most of the state's power grid, listed five options for getting wind-generated electricity to the populous areas that need it. Even the least ambitious would cost almost $3 billion. Texas is the largest wind power producer in the country, with more than 4,400 megawatts of capacity installed — about 2...