R C Macaulay wrote:
Not to be outdone.. as no Texas power producer
can .. the Houston ship channel industries old
Reliant power plant, one of 4 fallen into
bankruptcy because of rising fuel costs and too
broke to install pollution equipment, was
resurrected from the dead and sold for 450m and change.
The new owners will be given time to work out their pollution problems.
No place but Texas, where no man's life nor
property is safe when the legislature is in
session. Not to worry says the regulators..
On the other hand, let's give Texas and it
previous Gov. G. W. Bush credit for progress in
wind power. They are doing a remarkable job. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23wind.html?scp=1&sq=texas+wind&st=nyt
"Move Over, Oil, Theres Money in Texas Wind
SWEETWATER, Tex. The wind turbines that
recently went up on Louis Brookss ranch are
twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with
blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a
jumbo jet. More important from his point of view,
he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of
them on his land, with 76 more on the way.
Thats just money youre hearing, he said as
they hummed in a brisk breeze recently.
Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is
rapidly turning into the capital of wind power.
After breakneck growth the last three years,
Texas has reached the point that more than 3
percent of its electricity, enough to supply
power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.
Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields
into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone
Pickens is getting into alternative energy.
I have the same feelings about wind, Mr.
Pickens said in an interview, as I had about the
best oil field I ever found. He is planning to
build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10
billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself. . . .
I like wind because its renewable and its
clean and you know you are not going to be
dealing with a production decline curve, Mr.
Pickens said. Decline curves finally wore me out in the oil business.
At the end of 2007, Texas ranked No. 1 in the
nation with installed wind power of 4,356
megawatts (and 1,238 under construction), far
outdistancing Californias 2,439 megawatts (and
165 under construction). Minnesota and Iowa came
in third and fourth with almost 1,300 megawatts
each (and 46 and 116 under construction, respectively). . . ."
4,356 MW nameplate translates into about about
1,400 MW actual, or 1.6 average U.S. nukes.
That's very significant generating capacity!
This fellow Louis Brooks is making $39,000 per
month for doing essentially nothing! He just
collects the checks. He will soon be making
$77,000. That kind of money talks. People like
him will ensure that the coal industry does not
block the development of wind power.
- Jed
