Baryonyx Corp., a Houston-based renewable energy company, has applied for a permit to build an offshore wind farm from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between Corpus Christi and Brownsville, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The plan is to build 200 wind turbines capable of generating three gigawatts of electric power, capable of powering upward to 750,000 homes.
The project has to pass muster with the U.S. Navy, which wants to make certain that the erection of the 500 foot tall turbines would not interfere with the radar at the nearby Corpus Christi Naval Air Station. If the pylons are spaced widely enough, it is suggested that the interference would be kept to a minimum.
While there has not been the sort of powerful political opposition to the Baryonyx project that has characterized the Cape Wind project off Nantucket, there have been some concerns. Environmentalists are worried about the wind farms killing migrating birds. Property owners along the Texas Gulf Coast are worried that since some of the wind turbines will be visible from the shore, property values will decrease accordingly.
One thing working for the proposed wind farm is Texas' long experience with the oil and gas industry. Offshore oil and gas drilling platforms, some visible from the Gulf Coast, have been operating for decades. Thus people in Texas are accustomed to seeing industrial development from beaches and coastlines, unlike people, say, in New England who have been upset about the Cape Wind project, still mired in litigation and regulatory hurdles after 10 years.
The other irony is that while wind power projects are part of the trend toward "green renewable energy" favored by Washington, it may take the practical business acumen of Texas to bring some of the first projects to fruition. T. Boone Pickens, who made his fortune driller for oil and gas, is a big advocate of wind power, proposing a number of onshore projects to capture wind and convert it to electricity.
Texas has a reputation for being a more business friendly state than most in the Union. While a project such as being proposed by Baryonyx will have to pass some regulatory, especially on the federal level, and even legal hurdles, it is unthinkable that ten years will pass before even the first wind turbine rises above the Gulf of Mexico. The state government in Texas is oriented toward helping business develop projects, not impeding them. That principle even applies to green, renewable energy, rhetorically supported by some, but practically supported in Texas.
Texas resident Mark Whittington writes about state issues for the Yahoo! Contributor Network.
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