Energy? It's a breeze

BY CATHY JETT

A Stafford County company got swept up in wind- and solar-power development long before Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens started making headlines for backing it.

Now Infinite Energy Resources LLC, a 3-year-old renewable-energy developer, is approaching potential equity partners about financing the $750 million, 300-megawatt Arabella wind (and possibly solar) farm near Santa Rosa, N.M.

"The growth in the wind-power business has been 45 percent, year over year," said Michael D. Moretz, Infinite Energy's chief operating officer. "It's just extraordinary growth. With T. Boone Pickens' new plan and the price of gas, it's only going to accelerate."

Pickens, a prominent voice in the oil industry, is using commercials and a recent Senate appearance to push his "Pickens Principles," which call for slashing Americans' dependence on foreign oil by a third in the next decade.

To do that, he recommends harnessing wind and solar power to produce 22 percent of the country's electrical needs, and using natural gas to fuel cars, trucks and other modes of transportation until the next generation of alternative fuels can be developed.

"He's my new hero," Moretz said. "He's made the country more aware of possibilities and ways we can re-look at what we're doing today."

Moretz, a Great Falls resident, has a background in building, owning and operating businesses. He teamed up with Elsa Newland of Stafford, the company's president and a former consultant for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to found Infinite Energy Resources in November 2005.

Newland, who grew up on a farm, said she kept hearing complaints from farmers that they weren't able to produce enough to hang on to land that had been in their families for generations. She thought help might lie in the increasing number of federal grant applications for renewable-energy development that came across her desk.

"You can't live on farming alone anymore," Newland said. "You have to do other things."

Wind power's appeal for farmers is that the turbines needed for a project don't take up much room. That means a rancher can continue farming while collecting royalties or rent for the use of his land.

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WIND TURBINE FAQ How does a wind turbine work?

If the wind is blowing hard enough, the blades of a wind turbine will spin. The blades are connected to a drive shaft located in the nacelle, the box on the top of the tower. As the blades turn, the drive shaft turns and produces electricity. The electricity flows down the tower and into a transformer located outside the turbine. Inside the transformer, the electricity from the turbine is converted into electricity that we can use for power. The power flows to the project's substation and then into a large power grid. From there, the wind-generated electricity is sent through utility lines to its final destination.

How big are the turbines?

Utility-scale wind turbines for land-based wind farms come in various sizes, with rotor diameters ranging from about 164 feet to about 442 feet, and with towers of roughly the same size.

Small wind turbines intended for residential or small-business use are much smaller. Most have rotor diameters of 26 feet or less and would be mounted on towers with heights of 131 feet or less.

Offshore turbine designs now under development will have larger rotors--at the moment, the largest has about a 360-foot rotor diameter--because it is easier to transport large rotor blades by ship than by land.

How much electricity does one turbine produce?

A 1-megawatt wind turbine will typically produce enough energy for the annual needs of 350 average households. A 2-megawatt wind turbine may meet the needs of about 500 households. Actual production depends on a variety of factors, including the size and reliability of the turbine and the speed at which the wind is blowing. These factors together determine the turbine's capacity.

Typically modern turbines range in size from 660 kilowatts to more than 3 megawatts of capacity. They are placed in fairly windy locations with minimum wind speeds in the range of about 13 miles per hour. Wind turbines generally run at 30 percent to 40 percent of capacity, so a 1-MW turbine could produce about 3 million KWh of electricity in a year.

How much area does the turbine take up?

The actual space that a turbine tower occupies is fairly small, usually less than 100 square feet. Some towers require fenced-in enclosures for additional monitoring equipment, transformers and other equipment.

How much do wind turbines cost?

A large-scale wind turbine (i.e. greater than 600 kilowatts) costs approximately $1,000/kilowatt of nameplate capacity. That means a hypothetical 1,000-killowatt (1-megawatt) turbine will cost approximately $1 million fully installed.

Smaller farm- or residential-scale turbines cost less overall, but are more expensive per kilowatt of energy-producing capacity. Wind turbines under 100 kilowatts cost roughly $3,000 to $5,000 per kilowatt of capacity. That means a 10-kilowatt machine (the size needed to power an average home) might cost $35,000 to $40,000.

-- Infinite Energy Resources

Date published: 7/31/2008

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