Pickens Drops Giant Bid for Wind Farms

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Wolverine

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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- T. Boone Pickens has scuttled plans for a giant wind farm in Texas, partly out of difficulty with building transmission lines, the latest sign that efforts to rebuild the nation's electrical infrastructure have been marked by fits and starts.

Hurdles faced by the billionaire financier include lower natural-gas prices, which made power from wind less desirable as an alternative to gas-fired electric plants.

Financing is also tough to get nowadays, as alternative energy developers await key moves in Washington on tax breaks, renewable portfolio standards, and other programs.

He unveiled his plan a year ago against a backdrop of record-high oil and gas prices. He set his sights on building as much as 4,000 megawatts of wind power in Pampa, Texas -- an amount equivalent to the electricity made by four nuclear-power plants. [SIZE=10pt](Correction: Not to be overly pedantic, but four nuclear UNITS, quite possibly at one plant) [/SIZE]

Pickens now plans to build five or six smaller wind farms in the Midwest and possibly Texas, according to published reports on Tuesday.

Another big stumbling block facing Pickens and others is a lack of transmission lines.

At first Pickens proposed building his own lines, but didn't follow through. "It was a little more complicated than we thought," Pickens told the Dallas Morning News. [SIZE=10pt](BWAHAHAHA, YEAH NO SHIITAKE, SHERLOCKE!)[/SIZE]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pickens-s...wind-farm-plans

[SIZE=10pt] Good idea...Economically unfeasible. Tough to build a football field that reaches from OK to PA without some complications. [/SIZE]

 
California has a requirment for 20% renewable energy by 2010, we are seeing alot of solar generation and some additional wind, we already have a great deal of wind power. The issue is the same, where are the power lines. Good new mostly crossing our deserts, bad news, environmentalists want to protect the fragile deserts. We are in a struggle to build capacity while saving the environment.

To date there are over 100 solar projects proposed for the deserts alot on he corridor from LA to Vegas (when the power lines are!!). I think they will make close to the 20% goal.

 
California has a requirment for 20% renewable energy by 2010...
They also had a requirement that 10% of all cars sold after 2002 had to be electric.

When fantasy meets reality, reality wins.

 
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Its always been a stop and start over affair with advancing environmental concerns, odd that GM was crushing their electric cars when the Prius was on the boat, and end up one of the largest markets in the US.

 
The Prius didn't do well at all until it got the "look at me! I'm a Hybrid!" styling in 2004. Sadly, for a lot of people buying hybrids, its about image more than actual results. Look at the dismal sales of all other hybrids without the "I'm a Hybrid!" styling.

 
Hybrids are a fad. Once people start having to deal with how the batteries behave as they age, there will be a new fad.

 
Hybrids are a fad. Once people start having to deal with how the batteries behave as they age, there will be a new fad.

Or once they realize the environmental impact from them when produced/disposed of in major quantities.

 
^They might as well try to repeal the law of gravity while they're at it. It will be just as successful as trying to legislate economics.

 
The Prius didn't do well at all until it got the "look at me! I'm a Hybrid!" styling in 2004

Not where I live, Prius drivers drive alot and get great gas milage, its a good car and not very expensive. You also see delivery or other high mileage commercial.

Its not about gas, electric, steam its about choice. I choose a hybrid, MGX chooses steam. If US automaker are not going to provide choice then they will continue to loose market share. When everyone was crying about $5.00 gas I just laughed.

If we make hydrids here in the US we will send less $$ to you know where, if we make our own energy, solar, wind, ocean we will send less $$ to you know where. I am willing to pay a little more for everything to screw you know who, and the are not american.

 
If we make hydrids here in the US we will send less $$ to you know where, if we make our own energy, solar, wind, ocean we will send less $$ to you know where. I am willing to pay a little more for everything to screw you know who, and the are not american.
I'm not sure what you're talking about with "you know where". Saudi Arabia? Do you have something against arabs?

Producing our own domestic energy doesn't have a lot to do with the Middle East, despite the interchangeable use of the words "energy" and "dependence-on-foreign-oil" in the media. Energy (power) is provided by coal, nuclear, hydro, and natural gas. There is some oil-fired generation, but it's not much. I suppose the argument could be made that home-heating oil could be replaced by electric strip heating if we had an unlimited energy source, so I guess that is a foreign-oil connection. But of the three alternative energy sources you cited, only wind has any output. Solar is a neat science project but does not have the numbers. Wave/tidal is a joke - very, very cool on a small scale and I love the concept, but there is no grid-connectable output. Wind does have some numbers, but it is a regional solution at best.

Everything has a cost, and the cost of bringing these products to market has never been even close to what is readily available otherwise, and will not be for a long, long time. We'll have developed micro-nukes by that time and solar/wind/ocean will remain percents of a percent of the overall portfolio, just like hybrid cars.

 
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