Pickens Wind Farm to Get Underway

Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens is commencing action, with plans for his company, Mesa Power, to build, over the next four years, the previously announced $10 billion wind farm, the world's largest, that will eventually generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity - the equivalent of building two commercial scale nuclear power plants - enough power for about 1 million homes.

Next month Mesa Power, will begin buying land and ordering the first 500 wind turbines of the 2,700 turbines required for the project, at about $2 million each, to be located across 200,000 acres of the Texan panhandle.

"Don't get the idea that I've turned green. My business is making money, and I think this is going to make a lot of money."

-- Pickens in the Guardian

Pickens grand plan, not to be built by him, for resolving the energy needs of the US. is to build wind farms on a corridor of land running north to south through the middle of the US - along the great plains and to harvest solar energy from a corridor running east to west from Texas to southern California.

Pickens certainly thinks big, and somebody has to, as the U.S. government is doing little to resolve our compounding needs for new power sources. I assume thermal solar power would be used for the solar part of his plan as it currently is much less expensive than PV solar and thermal solar power can be quite easily adapted to thermal storage, although that brings the price up to where the total cost is quite expensive.

The only other comment I have is on Pickens grand scheme, and that would be to utilize geothermal power in addition to solar and wind.   Conventional geothermal would be used in the northwestern part of the U.S., primarily in California, Nevada, Idaho and Oregon, Hawaii and along parts of the New England coast. Hot dry rock or deep geothermal/EGS can be used in almost all of the U.S. and would serve the southern and eastern parts of the country, where solar and wind are not particularly applicable. The current cost of geothermal is comparable to natural gas power and thus is very attractive. Geothermal has the advantage of being a baseload power source, whereas wind and solar are not particularly suited for this application.  Thermal storage can be added to thermal solar but that would be more costly than geothermal. Significantly improved utilization of wind and solar can be obtained by tying geographically diverse sources together with an extensive grid. However, that is costly and would have to be studied in detail.

I personally think that a part of this plan would have to be to use generation III+ nuclear reactors and clean coal with sequestration to compliment the renewable power portions of this plan. This will be required to improve the baseload properties of the grid and provide the required power we need until the renewable power providers have built up sufficient capability. If Pickens, through his companies, can finance a $10 billion project that will supply 4 gigawatts of power, I would think that there would be several other companies, utility companies in particular, that could spend that much and supply all the incremental needs for power. Companies like Glitner and Chevron are capable of very large geothermal plants. Other diversified oil companies could get into the act as the supplies of oil get even more expensive and the world turns to electrictity as a larger and larger share of its power supply.

Comments

[Bob Wallace]

Cyril -

Any good sources for supergrid issues?

Some sort of well thought out paper on the subject....

[Bob Wallace]

From an AP post on the expected growth of US wind generation.

Can this be anywhere close to correct?

"Half a cent"?

"The report indicates that we can do this nationally for less than half a cent per kilowatt hour if we have the vision," said Andrew Karsner, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for efficiency and renewable energy."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080513/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/wind_energy_5

(Yes, I know it's thread hijacking, but there's no way to start a new thread on this site.)

[Kit P]

Here is the link to the NREL report:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/41869.pdf

Nothing new in the report. Same old, same old agenda driven stuff. Very weak on how to actually overcoming the barriers that could make wind go from 0.8% of generation to 20%.

Wait for it!!!!

[Pearce W. Hammond]

We need to look at all alternative energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, tide, etc.) and develop them. We also need to have a "Manhattan" type project where we gather scientists from around the world to work on developing new sources of energy. We should remember the phrase that "whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve." There is some form of energy out there that we can't even imagine now but once uncovered it could transform the world and the human race.

[Pearce W. Hammond]

We need to look at all alternative energy sources (wind, solar, geothermal, tide, etc.) and develop them. We also need to have a "Manhattan" type project where we gather scientists from around the world to work on developing new sources of energy. We should remember the phrase that "whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve." There is some form of energy out there that we can't even imagine now but once uncovered it could transform the world and the human race.

[sbs55]

Pickin's is probably not bluffing with his money or his "cajones", and those who call his bluff will probably not be the auto manufacturers or the politicians owned by the oil companies. Too bad he is 80+ years old and may not have time to get the special interests out of the way. How many $$$$ did Shell, ExxonMobil, Bp, etc make this last quarter? I hope Boone can make them and their shareholders puke.

[Bill Edwards]

Pickens and Obama are virtually creating a global wind energy business sector overnight. The domains (Internet addresses) www.InTheWindEnergy.com, www.BackyardWindTurbine.com and www.InvestingInWindPower.com are available for purchase at those addresses.

[Leon]

To tro April 18 -08 12;11 pm

A tax deduction for having less children ,
sounds nice, but it will never happen,
1st, the people that are having all the child are on welfar, or are illegal aliens, its the white europene that's not replacing himself, look at what we have to vote for,ware did they dig them up, it;s a total loss,they will never put this country frist

[Ben Leazer]

Would like assist in financing wind or solar
power.

[Wind Turbine]

Wind Turbines are a great way to reduce your energy bill. They are pretty affordable, something you can do on your own, and it's eco-friendly : )

[Tissa G]

Hey nice site, my mission is to convert all to wind power.... Save the Planet!

[Tissa G]

Nice post! Im try to convert the world to windpower - Save the world, check: http://windpowerdiy.blogspot.com/

[rate my body]

this is such a great thing. i want to see it more.

[Translation]

Since wind power is unpredictable and unreliable, perhaps a small solution would be to use wind turbines to do more direct labor, such as to pump water up into water towers, thus reducing the amount of electicity needed for pumping. Then you could extract a small amount of constant electricity with a small water turbine when the water exits the water tower.

[gerry thompson]

Wind Turbines produce FREE power!

It is environmentally safe to use.

Basically, wind turbines are machines that rotate whenever the force of the wind blows by it. It transforms kinetic energy into mechanical energy. The latter is then converted into electricity. The power generated is dependent of the actual wind power. The stronger the wind, the more power is produced. The wind is a very good source of power as it is available all the time. It replenishes very quickly.

Most of the time, wind turbines have 3 blades placed on the top most portion of a tower. They are designed to be placed on top so as to get maximum wind power.

With the skyrocketing cost of electricity, it is but practical to utilize the power of the wind in the form of wind turbines. Producing your own electrical power at home is very convenient and environmentally safe. Just imagine the amount of money you can save if you have your own wind turbine.

[don bartell]

great resource..check this site also..

http://www.windpowercost.org/

[gerry thompson]

Are you interested in learning the best, fastest and easiest way to
maintain the efficiency your Wind Turbine without spending a lot
of money on supplies?

If you answered “yes” to the question above, then this may
very well be the most exciting message you’ve read all day. Here’s
why…

You’re about to discover a proven system for optimizing the Best kept secrets to Wind Power Cost. This system works whether you have experience or are a beginner.

[Samanta SHilly]

Your blog is nicely green. Thanks to deal such subjects. Go green, go windpowercost.org

[Process Maturity Model]

We're in the very early stages of learning how best to pull usable energy from these sources, but it might not be too early to begin thinking about a unifying grid............

[Made in China]

Made in China

[Live Longer]

Explore your options for healthy aging. Find research and information on the health benefits of resveratrol, the miracle polyphenol found in red wine and its miraculous antiaging benefits. Resveratrol research suggests it has antiaging, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, and cardiovascular benefits.

[laptop battery]

My cheap camcorder batteries take on our current hydro-electric infrastructure cheap laptop ac adapters is to convert them to micro-hydro over time,cheap laptop battery when they get too old.

[laptop battery]

Here on the North CoastDell PC764 Battery the proposed wind farm has been downsized as Dell Precision M65 Battery our grid connection to the outside world is too small to ship out the power that could have been generated with Dell RN873 Battery the larger farm running full blast.

[Forex Brokers]

Well... round about every blog posts online don't have much originality as I found on yours.. Just keep updating much useful information so that reader like me would come back over and over again.

[Office 2010]

You are great! But I still did good! Hey!

[Computer Courses Gold Coast]

It wouldn't take much to install a secondary basin below the dam of our local hydro source. And I don't image any NIMBY resistance as this land is already set aside 'in the event the dam should burst'.

[Excel 2010 Online Tutorial]

"A 4,000 MWs wind farm runs 20% of the time (US onshore average)"

But is that the average for this specific site in Texas? Probably not. You can't base your math on the average for all of the United States. How do you know the wind doesn't blow 60% or 70% of the time at this site?

[Car Lease Los Angeles]

I just read the other article about Pickens and this deal, seems to be going through.

[Therapist New York]

Well, I would like to hope he was doing this to be a good person but at least Pickens is honest about being in it for the money!

[Tours in Venice]

You're right on Pickens thinking big, and the govt should be doing that as well- not for profit but for the betterment of the world we live in.

[Los Angeles SEO]

I love driving by the wind farms! They are so magnificent with the large white windmills.

[Sofa Glendale]

Wind Farms are a green energy but are they more efficient?

[property inventory London]

This is nice preview of information. When it comes to this topic, things might changed slightly. Thank you.

[beverage manufacturing]

Boone Pickens- best name ever! ;)