Pickens calls off massive wind farm in Texas

[Joanne98]

Source: AP


HOUSTON (AP) -- Plans for the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle have been scrapped, energy baron T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday, and he's looking for a home for 687 giant wind turbines.

Pickens has already ordered the turbines, which can stand 400 feet tall -- taller than most 30-story buildings.

"When I start receiving those turbines, I've got to ... like I said, my garage won't hold them," the legendary Texas oilman said. "They've got to go someplace."

Pickens' company Mesa Power ordered the turbines from General Electric Co. -- a $2 billion investment -- a little more than a year ago. Pickens said he has leases on about 200,000 acres in Texas that were planned for the project, and he might place some of the turbines there, but he's also looking for smaller wind projects to participate in. He said he's looking at potential sites in the Midwest and Canada.

In Texas, the problem lies in getting power from the proposed site in the Panhandle to a distribution system, Pickens said in an interview with The Associated Press in New York. He'd hoped to build his own transmission lines but he said there were technical problems.


Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Pickens-calls-off-massive-apf-2238040143.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

[liberal N proud]

1. Iowa is already one massive wind farm

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I always said T-Bone was a blowhard.

[Psephos]

21. Apparently, not enough of a blowhard in this case. lol n/t

[NightWatcher]

3. he wanted the land for the water rights underneath

he met resistance and ditched his plans, YAY

haha, suck it fucko

[WriteDown]

9. Might want to switch to the regular tinfoil instead of the

extra thick :eyes:

[NightWatcher]

14. Um, you might want to can the snark before you pay out the ass for tap water

http://www.reuters.com/article/gwmCarbonEmissions/idUS161963044120090617
In Roberts County, Texas, the site of T. Boone Pickens' future wind farm, some landowners think his land grab is greedy. With his two private utility companies Mesa Water and Mesa Power, the 80-year-old former oil tycoon has eminent domain rights to build a water pipeline and electrical transmission lines from this sparsely populated West Texas region to the dense hub of the Dallas-Fort Worth Area.

Some readers of the Wichita Falls, Texas Times Record News complain about these plans, and a website Texans for Public Justice details the numbers associated with the proposed municipal utility project. However, according the Roberts County Fresh Water Supply District website, plans to develop the right-of-way project have been temporarily suspended
______________________________________________________________

“Blue Gold”: T. Boone Pickens and the Privatization of Water
http://earthfirst.com/%E2%80%9Cblue-gold%E2%80%9D-t-boone-pickens-and-the-privatization-of-water/

<snip>
Pickens was recently in the news for spending big bucks on wind farms. His move toward investing in alternative energy doesn’t mean he’s an environmental activist, though: he’s in it for the money. While there’s nothing wrong with businesses making profits off products, policies and practices that are beneficial to the environment, Pickens’ past and present ventures make it clear he’s no friend to the earth. In fact, he’s admitted that he’s taking advantage of public fears about climate change, and he’s obviously not too concerned about the environmental impact of draining the Ogallala Aquifer.

Amidst current awareness about global warming, he feels confident that he’ll soon be making big money off the business of selling water. Population growth, prolonged droughts and the production of certain biofuels continues to put a tremendous strain on water resources, and Pickens doesn’t see why he shouldn’t pad his bank account as a result.

The Ogallala runs through an area of America that’s already threatened. Annual withdrawal from this aquifer is already outpacing the recharge rate by 300%. The amount of groundwater in the aquifer has been steadily declining in recent years. The government also faces a hurdle that billionaires with access to oil might be able to jump more easily: the rising cost of energy needed to pump water from the aquifer is making it tougher to access it. The USDA laments that “even in areas where the pumping depth is economical, geology limits pumping access as the water table declines

[WriteDown]

15. Mineral/water rights are tricky in TX...

I looked at buying some once and it is nuts. As you can see from your 2nd article. The problem is the excess demand for the water, not who owns it.

Also, I'm not sure how owning two municipal companies finally gives you eminent domain.

I've got to admit, I'd never heard this though

"The newspaper reported that land owners in the Tehuantepec isthmus were paid very low rent prices for their land, and the rows of towering windmills cut irrigation lines to farmers and covered crops with dust. In fact, according to the article, one community of Huavé indigenous people sued to keep large foreign companies off their land. Quoting a lawyer from the Tepeyac Human Rights Center who worked on the case, Claudia Vera said, "It's clean energy but dirty business"

[Kali]

12. yep

[hugo_from_TN]

13. He squandered 2 billion dollars on wind turbines for the water rights.

Man, he is fiendishly clever. :sarcasm:

[Robb]

16. Worth every penny.

Ask anyone in Colorado who's buying the water rights?

Hint: it ain't farmers and ranchers.

[Carl Skan]

31. Yes, he did.

And your "sarcasm" only displays your ignorance of the big money trying to tie up water rights right now.

[xchrom]

4. he is merely the most colourful corporatist who's trying to

figure out how to make the most money off of the workers back.

[RandomThoughts]

5. Getting off of foreign Oil is a huge issue, both economically

and for security reasons, I wonder why he is backpedaling on the wind farm? Doubtful he would have begun a project without considering distribution. I wonder if there are other factors in play.

[ananda]

6. Wow

Just wow..

Those Pickens's are pieces of work.

His ex wife Bee married my dad's former boss,
and they built this huge mansion in the country
with one huge room just for gold motorcycles.

Ick...

[hamerfan]

7. With Pickens it's the bottom line

I think when he proposed this, oil was around $140/bbl. Now it's $63/bbl. No profits, so it comes off the table.

[slampoet]

8. There are profits, just not the outrageous margin Pickins is used to.

[Yupster]

20. He spent his money on commercials

instead of his business.

And West Texas is a giant wind farm already without Boone.

[ThirdWorldJohn]

10. t Boone just bit off more than he could chew. As we say in Texas.......

Texas has more wind power than any other state, with 6,903 megawatts. But wind capacity has grown faster than the transmission lines to accommodate the power.

The Public Utility Commission is in the process of ordering transmission lines to accommodate new wind power. Commissioners could designate a line to Pampa, even though the wind farm would sit outside of the Texas grid, operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

If they don't, Mr. Pickens said, he'll just build his own private transmission line.

That could rock the traditional regulatory framework of a grid paid for by all power users and extend Texas' experiment in deregulation to a whole new side of the industry.

The PUC developed scenarios for new lines that could cost between $3 billion and $6.4 billion, depending on how much power the lines would carry.

Those power lines would be built by electric delivery companies. The companies would then apply to the PUC to pass along the cost directly to electricity consumers as a fee on their utility bills.

But if necessary, Mr. Pickens is willing to eat that cost to build his wind farm.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-pickenswind_15bus.ART.State.Edition1.4687df7.html

[sasquatch]

11. Good, take'em to a great lakes state

One of the Lake Erie islands could power my whole state alone.

[sutz12]

17. Good. Giant wind farms aren't the answer...

They should be sold and dispersed, installed closer to where they are needed.

Maybe they'll be available for some smaller projects that could use them in other states. We're doing some stuff up here in Washington along this line.

[a la izquierda]

18. Jeez, the man can put them all over...

Oklahoma. It's windy as hell every day.

[SunDrop23]

19. Sounds palinish (nfm)

[bloomington-lib]

22. Pickens backs off wind farm project: repor

Source: Reuters

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens has called off plans to build the world's biggest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, the Wall Street Journal said.

Pickens said the wind farm project was scuttled partly because of the lack of adequate transmission lines to carry the electricity from remote locations to cities, according to the paper.

The oil tycoon had hoped to build new transmission lines but could not secure financing, the paper said.

Pickens plans to find new homes for the turbines that he already agreed to buy, the paper said, citing a statement.

Pickens could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090708/bs_nm/us_pickens_windfarm

[specialed]

23. Bullshit!

He wanted the water rights along his selectively picked transmission corridor.

[mrbill]

24. damnit T-Bone you weasle

Last September a guy from Hilliard Energy called and wanted a transmission line easement across a corner of the family farm. Ten minutes on google told me about T-Bone and his wind farm plans. It all looked real legit.

The Hilliard land guy was real upfront about the whole thing, except for the T-Bone behind the scenes part. Met with him, five or times and even walked the property and discussed environmental and aestetic concerns.

Got a copy of the "Tranmission Facilities and Telecommunication Easement" on the desk. Not a word in it about water rights.

After a back and forth about the price we arrived at an agreement but the project was then put on hold "until the credit markets improve". Last September i was thinking things would get better in six months or so.

That was the last time the Hilliard guy has been seen in the neighborhood.

[MadLinguist]

25. now THAT is an interesting assertion.

I never believed that ol T Bone was ever interested in Pickin anything other than public pockets. You have a link about this? I would really like to show such info to a few who disparage my so-called cynicism.

[Javaman]

30. Here's a link...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ei=yMhUSs_UEIzElAeCsL3iCA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=t.+boone+pickens+and+water+rights&spell=1

way to many to list, so I just posted the google search.

clue #1: pickens is wealthy, they never do anything to help anyone else but themselves.

clue #2: he never ever once showed anyone these "wind turbines". so far not a single piece of evidence other than pickens claim, as there been presented that he was actually building anything of the sort. http://earth2tech.com/2008/04/14/t-boone-pickens-kicking-off-the-worlds-largest-wind-farm/
(note the date, not a single one has been erected since this first came out)

clue #3: he has gone out of his way to promote natural gas as the future life saver for american autos. what is pickens claim to fame? natural gas.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=t.+boone+pickens+natural+gas&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g1

it goes on and on. If you live in texas and been around for a while, the one thing you will pick up is this: pickens is a self aggrandizing bullshit artist of the highest form. If he says the sky is blue, you better damn well look up to make sure.

[WriteDown]

27. He could have just....

bought the water rights outright then. They can be purchased separately.

[No Elephants]

26. Well, ya knew from the jump that Pickens was in it only to enrich himself even more.

[WriteDown]

28. No doubt...

not as profitable now. Hopefully, they can figure out how to make it work.

[mrbill]

29. a Panhandle Wind Farm is a good idea .....

A great place for one or two or three. It always blows out there.

The big problem is getting the power to market. In this case it looks like it was headed for DFW. That's a long. long way

The segment of the line that i am aware of was to run from Vernon, Texas to the Krum substation, just northwest of Denton. A distance of 90 miles or so and was to be constucted by Oncor and paid for with a $2.00 charge on your next electric bill. Others companies were signed on for other parts of the line.

Problems to solve - the wind blows out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and then there's the credit markets.