Offshore wind farms are a no go

That's too bad.

Plans to build what would have been the nation's largest offshore wind farm in South Texas have been called off because the multibillion-dollar project didn't make economic sense, the developer said Monday.

John Calaway, chief development officer for Babcock & Brown Ltd., the Australian investment bank, said the company notified the state a month ago that it was giving up its 30-year lease on nearly 40,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Padre Island.

Calaway was chief executive of Houston-based Superior Renewable Energy when the agreement was announced 14 months ago. Superior was acquired by Babcock & Brown last summer.

"We just don't see the economics working offshore in Texas," Calaway said, noting the project cost would have been "in the billions."

Alas. Perhaps in the near future this will make more sense to another developer.

Babcock is moving on with an onshore wind farm in South Texas' Kenedy County, a $700 million-plus venture that calls for 157 turbines on thousands of acres, Calaway said. He noted the expense of building an offshore farm can be more than double the cost of one on land.

Like the nixed offshore project, Babcock's Kenedy County wind farm, slated to begin spinning late next year, has been criticized by some conservationists because of its potential to kill migrating birds.

Actually, the project has been under fire from the King Ranch, not so much conservationists. It's a fairly nasty battle, one in which my sympathies have so far gone to the Kenedy Ranch. And as we already know, claims about dangers to migratory birds are at least somewhat oversold.

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said he was disappointed to see Babcock drop the project, but he was confident another developer would be found because of the ideal location and the ease of doing business with only one landowner -- the state of Texas.

In fact, Patterson said he spoke to a few potential suitors at a wind conference last week in Los Angeles. He said those entities were good prospects because they've built offshore wind projects overseas.

Patterson has been a big booster of wind energy (and geothermal, too), for which I applaud him. I'm quite certain he will continue to pursue this.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on June 13, 2007 to Technology, science, and math