Offshore wind farm not happening in South Texas

Associated Press ^ | 6/12/2007 | AP

[P-40]

HOUSTON -- Plans for what would have been the nation's largest offshore wind farm off South Texas have been canceled. The developer said the multibillion dollar project didn't make economic sense.

John Calaway is chief development officer for Babcock & Brown Limited, an Australian investment bank. Calaway says the company last month notified Texas that it's giving up its 30-year lease on nearly 40,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico off Padre Island.

Calaway was CEO of Houston-based Superior Renewable Energy when the agreement was announced. Superior was acquired last summer by Babcock & Brown.

Babcock is proceeding with an onshore wind farm in Kenedy County. That more than $700 million venture calls for 157 turbines on thousands of acres.

An offshore wind farm can cost more than twice as much as a land project.

[Red Badger]

Kenedy County...........HMMMM.....

[Puppage]

Dang! Ya beat me to it.

[NewsJunqui]

Having driven through Kenedy county, why wouldn’t they just put the windfarm on land? There’s more cattle than people in the county. According to wikipedia, it’s the 4th smallest county by population (414) in the U.S.! There’s <1 person/square mile.

[PeterPrinciple]

The developer said the multibillion dollar project didn’t make economic sense.

---

Would that mean they couldn’t find enough stupid investors?

[P-40]

why wouldn’t they just put the windfarm on land?

It is my understanding they had some rather large environmental fights on their hands...that are largely gone now.

[basil]

Well, we Texans are much fonder of seeing oil wells in our Gulf. Maybe that was one reason he couldn’t find enough investors here.

[P-40]

I think they were going to have to cover 100% of the cost of getting their power to market...and that was going to cost way too much money.

[TexasGunLover]

Not to mention the fact that if you multiplied the amount of electricity the farm was going to generate by a billion you would have enough to provide electricity to a town of 50,000 people...

The fact is, we’re scared of the best power source... nuclear... we should be building dozens of plants... right now, I think there are only 3-4 planned in the next 30 years in Texas... We ought to be building the heck out of them....

[enviros_kill]

Windpower BLOWS

The horrors of wind power. Where are the eco-nazis with their pitchforks demonstrating in front of the Corp execs at the annual meeting??

http://www.matsuvalleynews.com/wind1.html

[P-40]

Not to mention the fact that if you multiplied the amount of electricity the farm was going to generate by a billion

Where it was to be sited is a great area for harvesting wind...it is just getting the power to market. If it were to generate the juice you suggest...that would take quite a transmission line indeed.

[TexasGunLover]

My point was, it doesn’t generate enough power to make a difference.

[P-40]

Do you truly know how much power is generated by wind?

[TexasGunLover]

Actually, I do.

The largest farms in West Texas generate very little power. The downtime of most of the turbines not taken into account, the amount of turbines needed to contribute enough power to actually make a dent in our energy needs and current consumption means that we'd need millions of turbines.

Between nuclear and coal, of which we have an abundance, wind power is simply a pipe dream.

You'll find a lot of statistics about potential capacity, but when you look at actual contributions to the grid, it's easy to see that wind power is unreliable. Owning land nearby a large wind farm in West Texas, I can tell you that there were always folks out there working on them and the turbines didn't turn near as often as the wind was blowing.

Some statistics say that 350 turbines can power about 1 million "efficient" households. That's IF they're turning, whether from having enough wind or are actually functioning.

Now start to think about the transmission lines and how many turbines would be needed to support this many households. They have to be located where there is enough wind, and you'll still need reliable power sources to back them up. Sure, any power plant can go down, but when you look at a basically limitless coal supply in the United States, it's sort of crazy to be thinking about building hundreds of thousands of turbines instead of building new coal and nuclear plants.

[P-40]

The largest farms in West Texas generate very little power.

Just what do you call 'little' power?

[TexasGunLover]

Just what do you call 'little' power?

The Big Spring Wind Power Project in Texas has 46 wind turbines that generate enough electricity to power 7,300 homes. Start thinking about how many turbines would be required to power a large city, taking into account mechanical down time, and actual production.

I truly hate to reference Wikipedia, but the wind power article gives a good description in regards to capacity factor:

— Since wind speed is not constant, a wind generator's annual energy production is never as much as its nameplate rating multiplied by the total hours in a year. The ratio of actual productivity in a year to this theoretical maximum is called the capacity factor. A well-sited wind generator will have a capacity factor of about 35%. This compares to typical capacity factors of 90% for nuclear plants, 70% for coal plants, and 30% for oil plants.

I'm not saying wind power contributes nothing at all, I'm just saying the land and money required for this unreliable power source, versus building coal and power plants, is wasted effort when you look at contribution to the grid.

[P-40]

Wind power is meant to *supplement* traditional power sources, not replace it. What power you get from wind saves on your coal bill, for instance. Our hydro-power here is the same way. We can’t generate all the time because there is not enough water, but when we can we save on fuel and can sell what electricity we don’t need.

[TexasGunLover]

Wind power is meant to *supplement* traditional power sources

No argument there. I agree with that. However, here in Texas, we're in need of new sources of generation, and the environuts are blocking new nuke and new coal plants which are really where we need to be spending our time and resources.

[P-40]

I think TXU and Governor Perry through the environuts for a loop...and they’ll not be able to block some new projects or at least will have to work harder to do so. They were blocking coal, nuclear, and even wind.

[TexasGunLover]

I hope you're right-- even a blind squirrel like Perry finds a nut sometimes.

I read an article here recently talking about how the Japanese have cookie cutter nuke plants, greatly reducing the construction time and that we'll probably use their technology for new nuke plants.

I live within two miles of TXU's North Lake natural gas plant (never runs, except those few peak days a year) and I'd love to see it replaced with a nice clean nuke plant.

I'm not one of those that says, not in my back yard.