T. Boone Pickens Scraps Plan For Texas Wind Farm

T. Boone Pickens has announced plans to scale back the ambitious "Pickens Plan" and is suspending efforts to build the world's largest wind farm in the Panhandle of Texas.

Pickens cited several factors including the lack of transmission lines to the region and the drop in price of natural gas.

The Pickens reversal is the latest in a series of setbacks for the wind energy business in 2009. The global economic malaise has pressured the industry and consulting firm Emerging Energy Research predicts a decline of nearly 25 percent in the amount of new wind power installed in 2009 versus 2008.

Wind Turbine Failure Photos

Power producing wind turbines are exposed to significant material stresses. Wind turbines have been known to fail in the gearboxes, generators, and rotor blades. Overheating is a constant concern and one that will have to be addressed by the next generation of wind farms.

Offshore Wind Farm Finds Investors

The world's largest planned offshore wind farm has found new investors in the form of an Abu Dhabi investment fund.

The future of the proposed London Array wind farm has been in doubt since Shell pulled out of the project in May after estimated costs more than doubled.

Eon and Danish based DONG Energy had been seeking a new partner in the offshore wind energy farm.

The Masdar Initiative, which is funded by the Abu Dhabi government, announced that it will take a 20 per cent stake in the project.

Renewable Energy Investing Incentives

The Senate is set to vote on Wednesday on a version of financial rescue plan that includes approximately $78 billion in renewable energy investment incentives and extensions of expiring tax breaks.

This comes as welcome news to investors in the wind and solar energy sectors who have been looking to Congress for action since the tax credits were not renewed earlier this year.

The alternative energy investment tax credits are currently slated to expire on December 31.

T. Boone Pickens Plans $10B Wind Farm

T. Boone Pickens, a legend of the Texas oil industry, is planning a $10 billion wind energy project.

Pickens and his company Mesa Power plan to produce 4,000 megawatts of electricity via the vast wind farms. Mesa is expected to complete a contract for 2,700 wind turbines by May 2008. This investment is anticipated to produce the first 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

Although Pickens states that alternative energy profit margins are not equal to those of the oil and gas industry, he does expect a 25% margin on the energy produced by the wind power project.

"When I go into these markets, I expect to make money on them," Pickens said. "I don't expect to lose."

Solar Power Automobile Conversions

A new law puts Minnesota at the forefront of the renewable energy push.

Thursday, Governor Tim Pawlenty will sign into law a measure renewable resource advocates call “aggressive.”

The law requires all utility companies to be using renewable resources for a quarter of their production by 2025. The only company not required to this is XCel Energy, who will be held to a higher standard of 30 percent by 2020.

States around the nation are reaching for renewable resource solutions. Colorado, for example, put forth a 20 percent by 2020 requirement. Other states, such as New Hampshire, have taken a page from Minnesota’s book to consider the 25 by 25 requirement.

Estimates from 2004 put Minnesota’s power dependency on coal at about 50 percent of production. Only 8 percent of power production in Minnesota came from renewable resources in the same year.

The new bill sets a goal for the state’s power companies to use renewables for at least 10 percent of their production by 2015.

Nationally, advocates are pushing Congress to set goals similar to those here in Minnesota. By promoting solar power, biodiesel and wind farms, those seeking more renewable resources in national energy say utilities across the country could be focused on the 25 by 25 goal.