T. Boone Pickens sells interest in Goodhue County wind project

Source: twincities.com

The Dallas-based company owned by oil and natural gas billionaire T. Boone Pickens says it has sold its interest in a controversial wind development in Goodhue County.
American Wind Alliance (AWA), a subsidiary of Pickens' Mesa Power Co., sold its interest in the AWA Goodhue Wind Project to Peter J. Mastic, who formed a limited liability corporation in Nevada and renamed the project the New Era Wind Farm, according to AWA and filings with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Some Goodhue County residents opposed the proposed 78-megawatt wind farm because they feared it would harm the area's bald eagles.
Mastic was the developer of the project until his development company was sold to an Indian wind energy developer in December.
Mesa Power sold the project because it is "redeploying its wind development efforts," company spokesman Jay Rosser said.

T. Boone Pickens sells off stake in wind farm

Source: thehill.com
In the original plan he rolled out in 2008, Pickens pushed for increasing domestic wind power capacity to help wean the nation off oil imports.
Pickens backed his talk with his bank account, securing a large plot of land in Texas for a proposed wind farm.
But the recession hit, permitting problems ensued and Pickens moved the farm to Minnesota.
Then natural gas tumbled to record-low prices, causing Pickens to shift to that energy source in his plan as the main driver for domestic electricity generation.
That market dynamic also has spelled trouble for a crucial wind energy incentive.
The 2.2-cent per kilowatt-hour incentive for wind power production, known as the production tax credit (PTC), is set to expire Dec. 31.
A significant bloc of Republicans, along with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, opposes extending the incentive.
They call the PTC an example of unnecessary government intervention into energy markets, and argue that the uptick of natural gas for electricity generation shows energy production is best left to free markets.
President Obama as well as many Democratic and Republican lawmakers representing sizable wind energy sectors want to extend the incentive, and Obama has tried to turn the issue into an election vulnerability for his opponent.
Supporters of the tax credit cite industry-backed estimates that failing to extend it would cost 37,000 direct and indirect jobs. Many wind energy firms, such as Siemens and Vestas Wind Systems, have cited the uncertainty surrounding the incentive’s future to explain recent layoffs.
Supporters also say the incentive is working and helping the wind industry catch up to legacy energy technologies such as oil and coal. For proof, they point to wind electricity accounting for 35 percent of all newly installed generating capacity in 2011.
Though he has not endorsed a presidential candidate, Pickens said in August that Obama has thwarted increased oil-and-gas production by restricting drilling on federal lands.

T. Boone’s wind farm plans finally blow away

Source: gigaom.com
Looks like former oil-baron turned clean power advocate, T. Boone Pickens, won’t be building his wind farm after all, according to a report in the Minneapolis StarTribune. Pickens has reportedly sold off all of his stake in a wind farm in Goodhue County, Minnesota, which has been under discussion for about two years.
If you remember back four years ago — when clean power, cleantech and the potential for carbon policy in the U.S. was hitting a peak — Pickens announced to the world that he planned to kick off the world’s largest wind farm in Texas. It was part of his Pickens Plan to make the U.S. energy independent, and he even bought 500 turbines from GE to build the farm. But then the recession hit hard in late 2008, the Texas wind farm struggled to get the proper transmission lines permitted, and natural gas started on its downward spiral in price, making clean power less attractive to investors.
In the spring of 2010, Picken’s decided to move the planned wind farm up north to Minnesota. The project was originally going to see 334 turbines land in Goodhue, Minnesota, creating a 78 MW wind farm, according to local Minnesota media back then. However, in recent years the wind farm plan had clearly gotten much smaller in scale, and is now reportedly a 50-turbine wind farm, estimated to cost $180 million.
Despite that Pickens has finally sold off his stake in the project, the owner of the wind farm, now called New Era Wind Farm, says he’s still try to get it built. The project is reportedly controversial in the area because of “concerns about potential noise and unpleasant shadows from spinning blades,” as well as “threats to protected eagles and bats that might hit the blades.”
Pickens still seems bullish on natural gas, particularly natural gas for transportation. Last year he was working on a bill that would help provide incentives for natural gas for transportation. Here’s a video interview I did with Pickens back in early 2011, and he told me back then that the wind part of his Pickens Plans was “on the shelf,” because of the low price of natural gas: