Gigi
Watt
Posted on 05/11/2006 1:22:17 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
AUSTIN, Texas - The nation's largest offshore wind farm will be built off the Padre Island seashore, a critical migratory bird flyway, Texas officials announced Thursday.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson lauded what he said would be an 40,000-acre span of turbines about 400 feet tall able to generate energy to power 125,000 homes.
"The wind rush is on," Patterson said. "We want to be number one. We want to attract the businesses that build the turbines, that build the blades. ... We want to be the leader in the United States, if not the world."
Superior Renewable Energy Inc., based in Houston, would build the farm and pay the estimated $1 billion to $2 billion construction costs.
But some environmentalists say the promise of clean energy may not be worth the deaths of countless birds that migrate through the area each year on their way to and from winter grounds in Mexico and Central America.
"You probably couldn't pick a worse location, unless you're trying to settle the issue as to how damaging they are to migratory birds," said Walter Kittelberger, chairman of the Lower Laguna Madre Foundation. Laguna Madre is the strip of water between the mainland and Padre Island.
The offshore wind farm is the second announced in less than a year for the Texas Coast, joining 50 wind turbines planned off Galveston.
It would have up to 500 turbines looming off Texas ranch land and spinning up to 500 megawatts of electricity.
The nation's largest currently operating wind farm is on the Stateline Wind Energy Center on the Oregon-Washington border, which produces about 300 megawatts of electricity. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. produces 9,149 megawatts of wind power, enough to power 2.3 million homes annually. President Bush has said wind energy could produce 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
Wind farm plans have also sparked disputes, including a bitter fight over a proposed 130-turbine wind farm off Cape Cod, Mass., where the residents fear the turbines will be unsightly.
In Texas, the state controls waters up to 10.3 miles off the coast and can make quick deals with developers, Patterson said. He said this project would be located off a remote, unpopulated part of Padre Island National Seashore.
"Those who are concerned about view sheds shouldn't have a problem," he said. "There's nobody there to look at it."
Jerry Patterson apprehended a couple of bank robbers running from police with his handgun - back before we were required to have concealed carry permits. He was an elected state representative then.
You're right about him.
Evolution at its finest.
Good for Texas! I wish my own damn state would follow.
Nantucket Sound is beautiful, but if you want to flip the light switch on and get results, you have to get the power from somewhere.
Should be interesting to find out!
For tens of thousands of years Birds have been able to fly around things. Now all of a sudden they magically can't any more. Right....
I try not to be conspiritorial but the only people who can possibly benefit from America not moving to alternative energy is OPEC.
They learn. It's intentional.
Earth Day is not on Lenin's birthday by accident. The entire movement was created to cripple the West from the inside. It continues after its creators have been stuffed and made tourist attractions in the Red Square mortuary and amusement park.
The turbine cores will start smokin'. LOL. And the libs will blame FEMA and W.
"all those migrant birds are crossing the border illegally. . ."
. . . and probably also carrying the flu! Good riddance.
You lost me... please rephrase your point.
...SMALL CRAFT ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 430 PM CDT THIS AFTERNOON...
.THIS AFTERNOON...NORTH WIND 25 TO 30 KNOTS DECREASING TO NORTHEAST 15 TO 20 KNOTS LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. BAYS ROUGH TO OCCASIONALLY VERY ROUGH DECREASING TO CHOPPY TO OCCASIONALLY ROUGH LATE IN THE AFTERNOON. .TONIGHT.
It blows hard all the time, from all directions.
It'll turn around by tomorrow and blow 20-30 from the S/SE.
In this case, I'm on the side of the environmentalists. This is a stooopid idea. The idiots just need to re-instate off-shore drilling, damnit!
I would like to see the Myth Busters take this one on,what exactly are the chances of a boid gettin whacked by a blade?....take a large boid,like a goose and randomly sling it through the path of the blades and see just how many passes it takes to get whacked...use a fake bird of course so as not PO PITA(pains in the a$$es)....bet they would end up calculated the timing just to GET a hit!!!
It's called reinstating offshore drilling! Putting a wind farm in a migratory bird flyway is asinine. And no, I'm not a enviro/wacko.
The libs would stoke out, wouldn't they!
Just put big scarecrows or giant fake hawks (with glow in the dark red eyes!) on each turbine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.