Posted on 01/14/2010 6:14:53 PM PST by george76
The energy investor, who made wind power a key part of his plan to wean Americans off foreign oil, said Tuesday he will now take delivery of 300 turbines, which he will use for wind farms in Canada and Minnesota.
None of the turbines will come to Texas, as originally planned.
Meanwhile, Pickens continues his campaign to persuade Americans to use natural gas to fuel heavy trucks, rather than diesel. Doing so, he said, could cut Middle East oil imports in half.
In May 2008, Pickens announced that his company, Mesa Power LP, would order 687 wind turbines, or 1,000 megawatts of capacity, from GE for about $2 billion. That's about the size of a nuclear power plant.
Those turbines were originally meant to become the world's largest wind farm, in the Texas Panhandle.
Now, Pickens says none of the turbines will go to Texas.
He said the Panhandle will still lack transmission lines to carry the power when he begins to take delivery of the turbines in 2011.
Pickens said he will build a wind farm in the Panhandle when transmission is built.
When Pickens announced his energy plan in 2008, he offered two suggestions: Use natural gas for vehicles, and use wind for electric power.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Wind does not work.
End of story!
Scheme.....scam....scamola....sham.....fraud....
The green economy seems to be headed for full scale collapse before it ever gets off the ground. Keep in mind all the other jobs associated with the wind farms are also off the table now as well.
Michigan wind projects also canceled.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2426536/posts
The wind in Texas don’t blow...It sucks!
Michigan wind sucks harder, its our governor that blows.
Pickens is a shyster. I ran into him often in Amarillo when Mesa Ltd Partners was there, and before he stole the city’s gas field. What a crook. Since he couldn’t scam taxpayers into paying for his transmission lines, he’s taking his football and going home. I’ve found a lot of people idolize him, but remember he made a LOT of money through hostile takeover attempts, where companies paid him millions to go away.
He’s right about use of domestic natural gas for vehicle use, though.
Good! I was in the panhandle on Tuesday and the windfarms they have now are cluttering up parts of the landscape.
They offer nothing but higher electric bills.
I remember a story a year or so back about Pickens stealing a concrete pad he wrote his name on as a child.
The owner came home and found that someone had come in a dug up the concrete pad and took it with them. Seems Pickens decided that since his family had once owned the property and it had his name on it, he was free to take it.
good. get lost pickens with your giant ugly ass inefficient windmills.
1000 MW times 0.25 useful load factor times an optimistic 20 years times 8760 hours in a year is 44 million MWh or 44 billion kWh. Divide the 2 billion dollars makes 4.5 cents per kWh. That cost is fairly low but doesn’t count infrastructure or take into account failure.
I always thought that T. Boone Pickens was brilliant, he made billions out of oil....suddenly he seems dumber than a box of rocks....lets not drill for oil, lets build a windmill....let’s not use nuclear power plants, God will send enough wind to take care of us....
hypotheticaly..if the wind doesn’t blow particularly hard in an area, wouldn’t it be necessary to have a power plant ready and able to take over immediate production of electricity??? If the power plant is there, fueled, manned and capable....why do we need the windmill??
I recently read an article that stated, and showed evidence for, the fact that under the U.S. territory, there was more oil and natural gas than in the entire middle east combined.....let’s go get it and stop shipping money to those who want to kill us.
***They offer nothing but higher electric bills.***
But doesn’t it make you FEEL GOOD knowing some poor elderly widow on Social Security will pay more for her electric bill in order to make you feel good?;-)
***Pickens is a shyster.***
He also sold off a large ammout of the water rights to the Ogalala Aquifer, not for irrigation, but for the cities.
Case in point-
From the Houston Biz Journal
Calpine Corp. has agreed to provide the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power with wind integration services.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
As per the short-term deal, Houston-based Calpine (NYSE: CPN) will provide up to 270 megawatts of firm power.
The company will utilize its natural gas-fired facility, Hermiston Power Project, located in Hermiston, Ore., as well as its contracted transmission resources in the Northwest to integrate the energy output it will purchase from the Windy Point Wind Farm in Klickitat County, Wash
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