Texas wind power receives major approval

In this Jan. 9, 2007 file photo, old and
new are side by side at the Horse Hollow
Wind Project in rural Taylor County north
of Wingate, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Texas announced that they are going to invest $4.9 billion in wind power. This investment will not build any wind turbines, but will facilitate the construction of more wind turbines by investors such as T. Boone Pickens.

The Texas plan is to build a large transmission network to move power from West Texas to major cities where the power can be used more effectively.  They plan on building transmission lines capable of moving 18 Giga Watts of electric power. Lack of transmission power is holding up wind development in Texas. It will be three to five years before the transmission lines are up and running.

This is just a small step in creating a new clean energy infrastructure. Stopping global warming will require replacing our country’s entire fossil fuel infrastructure, which will take decades and cost trillions of dollars. You have to start somewhere. It could take $15 trillion to replace our entire energy infrastructure. If it takes 30 years to accomplish, that would require $500 billion per year. To put this project in perspective, Texas is spending $1 billion per year or 0.2% of what should be required each year. This spending is important because it will facilitate other clean energy investment by people like T. Boone Pickens who plans on investing $10 billion to build a 4 Giga watt wind farm. Other investors could potentially invest another $35 billion in wind farms to produce an additional 14 Giga Watts of power to fill the 18 Giga watt capacity of the transmission lines. This now becomes a total investment of $50 billion in wind, which if done over 5 years will cover 2% of the investment needed annually to convert our infrastructure over 30 years.

For an individual to construct a power grid would be very difficult and becomes an obstacle to developing clean energy. This is an investment better suited to government. Texas is actually getting 10-to-1 leverage on its money as private investors should fund 90% of the cost to develop this clean energy resource. This is just the type of investment that governments should be making if we want to build a clean energy future for this country.