Panhandle To Get Second Wind Farm

Many have been asking for electricity to be generated in cleaner ways and using renewable resources, instead of building more dirty coal-burning plants. It looks like Texas is jumping big-time into this market. Soon, Texas may be the nation's leading producer of electricity from wind energy.

And they couldn't have found a better area to do it in -- the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. If there's one thing the Panhandle has plenty of, it's wind. There are few days without wind on the high plains.

Last June, I told you about the Mesa Group's plans to build a wind farm in four counties of the Panhandle (Gray, Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler). They said this huge wind farm should produce about 3,000 megawatts of electricity. This is slightly more than the energy produced by the nuclear plant at Comanche Peak.

Now, a second wind farm is being planned for the Panhandle. TXU is teaming up with Shell WindEnergy to build a wind farm in Briscoe county southeast of Amarillo. This one will also produce around 3,000 megawatts. Adding a new wrinkle, the group says they are considering the use of compressed air for those few days when the wind doesn't blow in the Panhandle.

This sounds like a good deal for everyone. After they get back their initial investment, the power companies will have plants powered by a very cheap renewable source. Farmers and ranchers will have a new source of income that won't pollute their land. Electric consumers will get the electricity they need without any accompanying pollution. New jobs will also be created for Panhandle residents to build and maintain the systems.

I commend both groups and wish them success. This is the kind of forward-thinking that Texas needs.

Panhandle To Get Largest Wind Farm In Nation

A few days ago, we learned that a proposed wind farm to generate electricity in the Gulf of Mexico will not be built. The proposed builders said they had determined that the plan was just not economically viable. But just the opposite conclusion has been reached in the Texas Panhandle.

Oilman T. Boone Pickens and his Mesa Group have spent the last 9 months investigating the feasibility of a huge wind farm in the Panhandle. They believe the renewable energy wind farm is viable, and they're planning to build what would be the largest wind farm in the nation.

Yesterday, Mesa Group met with 250 landowners in Gray, Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler counties to explain the proposal. Mesa is offering the landowners a $4500 payment for each wind turbine, plus 4-5% of the electricity's value as it is sold. Mesa claims these are among the most generous terms in the wind farm industry.

The group wants to put about 2000 turbines across nearly 200,000 acres of Panhandle land. These turbines would produce between 2000 and 4000 megawatts of electricity (the equivalent of 1-2 nuclear power plants the size of Comanche Peak).

Mesa says it will cost about $6 billion to build. This would include the cost of building transmission lines to connect it to the state's power grid. Most of the expense is the cost to build and maintain the system. The fuel to power the system (wind) is both free and renewable. Even better is that it produces no pollution or greenhouse gases.

I know there will probably be opponents to the plan, but I think it's a good idea. It will be a financial boon to the landowners and the Panhandle in general. It will supply a lot of the much-needed electricity Texas needs as its population continues to grow. And it will do it without polluting the clean air of West Texas.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me.