Much Mish Mash

Here's a few unrelated, but related items.

Yeah, baby it's cold outside
But the Wildcat Bluff Nature Center has a Night Hike coming up December 11 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults, $2 for children and seniors and members are free. Bring a flashlight for the hike and activities. They promise hot chocolate after the hike. It better be really hot.

The next day at the Bluff is a program on land management and fire.

From 10 a.m. to noon hear a lecture on fire ecology and then hike to an area that was burned in November 2008 to get smart about the importance of fire in our ecosytem. Admission is the same as for the Night Hike.

The Bluff is out Soncy Road north from Interstate 40 on the west side.

Powering up
Makes sense. Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge is getting $96,000 in recovery money from Uncle Sam to install solar power panels. Natural power in the middle of nature - the ducks will probably approve.

Boost your bill
SPS is asking pretty please in Austin to put a new charge on your bill. The money would go to purchase Renewable Energy Credits. It's a voluntary program the PUC has to approve, but monthly payments to help fund wind energy might be a handy way to do it.

Not in your backyard

I know, I've been lax in posting, but here goes a new era.

There's buzz around the region about the Chinese coming to the Panhandle to build a wind farm. I've been asked a few times in the past week and couldn't find out anything specific because all the information floating around never says where the project will be except somewhere in Texas.

That narrows it down.

The New York Times environmental blog Green Inc. is equally vague, but here's the details it did contain, confirmed on the Web site of Cielo Wind Power, the Austin-based company partnering with the Chinese. It also is active in the Panhandle, most recently developing the Wildorado Wind Ranch and piling up leases for future development.

A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Nasdaq company based in China, will ship in 240 of its 2.5 megawatt turbines for the project slated to cover 36,000 acres. The total cost of the project is estimated at $1.5 billion.

But no wonder people are in a fluff, the company hopes to get $450 million of the financing from U.S. stimulus funds, and the project will create 2,000 Chinese manufacturing jobs, according to the blog. There will be American jobs, but not anywhere close to that.

The thing is, for any wind farm, construction jobs are temporary and the jobs to maintain the farms are few.

Cielo has created jobs in the Panhandle, like at the Wildorado Wind Ranch and White Deer's Llano Estacado Wind Ranch, and has plans to do more, but this deal isn't happening here.

I talked to Walt Hornaday, CEO of Cielo, yesterday, and he said the project will be somewhere downstate where there are transmission lines available now. The Panhandle's are still not absolutely guaranteed until the PUC decides wind developers have proven they will use them, and the process to make them happen puts the finish date in 2013.

Hornaday said the reason the news on where the farm will be is that the exact location is not yet concrete.

This isn't the first time Cielo has reached out to partner with an overseas company. Cielo and Samsung Heavy Industries of South Korea are planning to install three of Samsung's 2.5 megawatt prototype turbines near Lubbock for testing.

It's official

The season is ripe now because we finally had our first meal of the year that came mostly from our gardens.

Sure, there's been plenty of herbs, a tomato or two spread over time. And sure, I'm late like always.

But last night I got to cook a ragu with eggplant, bell pepper and tomatoes from our beds. And the rosemary, basil and oregano were ours as well. To round it out I threw in some garlic, garbanzos, wine and zucchini (our Lebanese squash is almost ready). It tasted a lot like summer.

Tip on the eggplant. Buy it young, maybe at the farmer's market at Sunset Center Tues., Thurs. and Sat. mornings, cut it into one-inch chunks and put it on a plate covered with a layer of coffee filters. Salt it and microwave on high for about eight minutes. That gets the water out and precooks it before the saute. No mush, no fuss.

Got another e-mail from Boone, well, his aggressive pr people. It quoted U.S. Senate leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, as being a member of "the Pickens church." Scary. See what natural gas and a lot of money can do to you.

I threw in these pictures from an e-mail newsletter I get. It puts up links to all the wind stories I write, so it can't be all bad. Disclosure about the site that publishes the newsletter - it can get a little negative about wind energy. But it asks good questions. I like it for balancing other sources. I mean, I listen to Rush, too, for balance.

There's no good reason for the photos except they're kind of cool. The first is from Minnesota, the second from West Yorkshire in England.

Chicken? Egg? Wind?

What has to come first to cover our horizon with wind turbines? This photo was taken near Palm Springs and shows part of an installation of 4,000 turbines.

I have mixed feelings about how much wind would be good for the Panhandle - not really at the wild-eyed chamber of commerce level, but not totally against it like the grumpy old man people accuse me of being.

The American Wind Energy Association recently released its second quarter market report, saying wind installations nationally went against expectations, beating the 2008 first half total. The industry installed 4,000 megawatts in 2009 versus 2,900 MW last year.

In another segment of the business, orders for parts are slowing as is the manufacture of turbines.

AWEA's CEO, Denise Bode, says what we need is a stronger push by the federal government via a robust national renewable fuel requirement.

And what can't the federal government make better? Nevertheless, in the shortrun, that probably won't help the Panhandle.

Walt Hornaday, head of Cielo Wind, knows about the wind business here. His company finished the Wildorado Wind Ranch in Oldham County a couple of years ago and has developed numerous other projects in Texas.

While people continue to say "if only the transmission lines would get here to take our power to the neon lights of Dallas, we could start building wind farms," there might be something else hitting the brakes.

According to Hornaday, The financial sector would not step up and fund that building right now. With projects costing about $2 million per megawatt, that's a lot of missing financing when you think about the Wildorado installation being rated at 161 MW capacity.

The AWEA report has some other interesting information, especially if you're a wind geek. For example, Missouri led the country in second quarter growth at 146 MW added while Texas doesn't even make the top 10 with 454 MW added. I know that's because Texas already has a lot of wind farms, so the 454 is a smaller percentage, but it looks weird to get beat by Missouri.

This is going to hurt just a little

GE announced yesterday it is working on home plans for building or retrofitting homes to be net users of zero electricity. The company hopes to debut the plans by 2015.

The keys to making this work are more efficient energy-using products, management of how much energy the home uses, generation of electricity and storage of that energy. Makes sense – light bulbs and appliances that use stingy amounts of power, solar and wind generation on site and making decisions to not use power.

Wait. GE, and others promoting some smart-grid proposals, think an informed consumer will make a conscious decision to cut back on energy use if they just understand how much they are currently using. Are we talking about American consumers?

According to GE, residential housing uses 37 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. Of that usage, appliances, lighting and heating and cooling account for 82 percent.

We already know turning off the blow dryer will cut energy consumption and so will keeping the thermostat set higher during the summer and lower in winter. Has that really changed a lot of lifestyles?

The nifty highly efficient water heaters GE is dreaming up and residential solar and wind sound good, except for the neighbors who will complain about the looks. But it will be really hard for a lot of people to quit being energy hogs.

My pal Pickens

Just got a personal note from T. Boone Pickens about his $10 billion wind farm near Pampa.

Well, I guess the note actually went to all his Pickens Army people who promote the Pickens Plan. See any Pickens Pattern here?

He says the wind farm isn’t cancelled, just postponed to 2013 when the transmission lines are due to be completed in the Panhandle for the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones. That's counter to what many news outlets said recently

Oh yeah, and he’s a victim in this.

“This misreporting is no doubt being fueled by those aggressively trying to convince Congress and the American public that wind and solar power can’t contribute significantly to solving our energy problems. They are wrong,” the note says.

And don't forget all the natural gas he wants to sell drivers for their cars since it won't be needed for electricity. That will cut our gasoline use and teach the Saudis and Chavez a lesson.

The 667 turbines he ordered from GE to be delivered in 2011 for the first phase are still coming, apparently. Pickens told a Bloomberg reporter he might use them for smaller farms or just “put’em in the garage.” That would be some garage, but I guess he could afford to build one before his investment fund crashed harder than my 401K.

And then we get all touchy-feely like Boone always does.

“I cannot ever thank you enough for your continued support for the Pickens Plan.”

Getting ready to plug and play

Now there's a plan, kind of, that puts dates to the completion of transmission lines for wind power in the Panhandle.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has submitted to the Public Utilities Commission proposed construction completion dates.

Here comes the alphabet soup.

ERCOT's plan is based on the PUC's goal of having all the lines to make the wind farms in Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) hooked up and pumping power to Dallas and such by the end of 2013.

The first line in the Panhandle will come up from the south through Briscoe, Swisher and Castro counties to Randall County by Sept. 30, 2012. One problem, it won't get hooked to the grid until Dec. 31, 2012. Next comes the line through Childress to Donley, Gray and Carson counties, across the Palo Duro Canyon (that should be fun) in Armstrong County to Randall County. That is supposed to happen by March 31, 2013.

Those plans will give access to large wind farms planned by Shell (Briscoe County), E.ON (Carson and Gray) and Mesa (Gray and Roberts) and a too many smaller outfits to count. Besides, these wind companies are pretty secretive about their operations, with their landmen trying to sign up landowners to contracts that promise the signer's torture and perhaps more if they disclose any terms.

Then there's the newest entry. A Danish outfit and a Norwegian one are teaming with a Parmer County company to tempt more than 200 landowners to sign up about 204,000 acres for a wind farm that is bigger than any of the others. Right now they think they can do 3,000 megawatts, but the goal is 5,000 megawatts. That's enough for 1.75 million average homes.

Then there's the rubs. The developers will have to find a sugar daddy to pay for it all, and there's no transmission planned in the area. But Jim Swafford, CEO of Scandia Wind Southwest, the Parmer County company, says if they build it big enough, the transmission will follow.

No Saudia Arabia of Solar

State Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, is fond of calling the Panhandle the Saudia Arabia of wind for its potential to pump out the power. However, his bills to promote solar energy died this legislative session as did a companion bill in the Senate.

It's not as big as not renewing transportation department (sure to be revisited), but the legislators never put the solar bills up for final votes.

Swinford proposed in one bill to create a fund for rebates to homeowners installing solar by charging electric customers a small fee. The other bill would have set mandates for developing "emerging renewable energy." That means anything other than utility-scale wind farms. The mandate called for adding 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2020. That would have been enough to power about one million average homes.

His bills join the ban on trans fat in restaurants on the dead bill list. They just couldn't get the votes the successful bill to require training and certification of laser hair-removal technicians.

Look what the wind blew in

It's the BBC in our 'hood.

They're taking a British look at Oldham County. The network came to see which way the wind blows in the Panhandle, making the point that support for the renewable energy source crosses political lines. It’s really more about the money. Yeah, there are a lot of landowners excited about getting turbines on their land and a lot of economic development people abuzz about support businesses for the industry setting up here.

And the counties and schools that depend on taxes for life are making deals left and right for tax abatements to get developers to plant turbines in their areas. Even forgiving taxes have made Oldham and its schools richer with payments in lieu of taxes from Edison Mission, a California energy giant operating in the county.

The BBC story focuses on the land, Mike Baca’s in particular. He’s got some of the Wildorado Wind Ranch on his place and couldn’t be happier.

Here’s an excerpt from Baca. He's the one with the poodle:
"From the porch of his ranch-house - Tuscan with a Texan twist - at the floor of a verdant canyon he can sip bourbon and watch the giant blades turning a perpetual profit.
"I like them. And I like the cheque that comes with them,’ he says. ‘I could do with a few more of them. We have to be concerned about what the world will be like for our grandchildren. If the turbines get noisy I can just switch on the fountain."

Oldham County Judge Donny Allred remains strong in his support of wind while awaiting the expansion of the wind ranch by Cielo Wind and Edison Mission. That will mean a whole lot more revenue for the wide-open county that has more cattle than people.

And that’s not a bad thing. I live there so I can testify. But it’s kind of funny to see the BBC cameraman’s fascination with cattle, down to the slightly snotty nose on one. Watch the video at the bottom of this post.

Another excerpt, this time from Allred:
"This is the most perfect marriage of two industries - wind and cattle ranching," he says. "They were made for each other."

You can barely see the turbine in the background in the photo at the left.

Computer-headed farmers

They're misunderstood, but that's about to change - maybe.

I got a packet today from a group called The Hand That Feeds Us, and they just want to talk about it. The fact that the declining piece of the federal budget for agriculture is now down to one quater of one percent. The fact that more than 70 percent of the USDA budget goes to nutritional programs. And the fact that anti-farming groups have been manipulating the media.

See, we're all so out of touch with our farmness, we're easily swayed by those who want to take away all federal ag funding. That's actually probably true, but the Hand That Feeds Us wants to quit getting bitten.

They're going to accomplish their goals by building "long-lasting relationships with journalists and show them family owned and operated farms, not giant agribusinesses, are the true face of agriculture," said Steve Verett, a Lubbock-area cotton, wheat, grain sorghum and sunflower farmer who is also executive vice president of Plains Cotton Growers.

I've talked to him and he's a good guy.

PCG is an advocacy and education group for cotton farmers, so it's not really the face of agriculture The Hands That Feed Us has in mind, even if its maybe made up of a lot of the "real" faces of agriculture. It's more of an industry lobby group a lot of the time.

Anyway.

These people really want the government and the American people to give them some love. They even got two senior U.S. senators to write a letter for the packet that says "food and clothing are basic human needs. The establishment of governmental policies, just as essential, if not a little more complicated, ensures that these needs are met."

I can eat a squash, but not a policy, so I vote for food being more necessary.

But the best part is this. In the packet was an incentive for us media types to wake up to the truth we've all been blinded to. Wow, Farmer Brown is really a USB stick. He keeps the connection under his hat. Well, actually under his head. I'm convinced there's more to these farmers (and I really do like most of them a lot) than the old stereotype.

Sorry you're feeling so bad guys and gals. Good luck with those "long-lasting relationships" in New York City.

Try not to think about it

Some things are just better left in the dark, and don't forget Mom said the Internet can be an icky place.

Looking for blog fodder, I went a food insider Web sit to do a little trend shopping. The content ranged from interesting, FDA rules Cheerios cereal is a new drug due to health claims it makes, to blah.

But the ads made me want to quit my label reading, which would please my wife, and just accept whatever food makers send my way.

Who needs to know about freeze-dried coconut water? And I'm not really in the market for carmel food color, so a free liquid or powder Carmel Color Library is out, even if the company's been in the biz since 1880.

But leave it to the big boys to really stand out. How about "Cargill Texturizing Solutions - Thoughts For Food." It starts out innocently enough with the question of whether you're a fan of "naturally, high-quality chocolates." Well, who isn't except enemies of the state?

Then we go to the question of whether we are looking for a lecithin that isn't genetically manipulated - huh?

So many questions, but, of course, the answer is Cargill's Topcithin from sunflowers. The natural solution that really needs to stay behind the curtain.

Isn't the recipe really supposed to be a little chocolate, a little cream, a dollop of love?

Hot Flash

Those slightly crazy folks at New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute, "where spiciness is a religion," have teamed up with CaJohn's Fiery Foods to bottle fire.

Holy Jolokia! pepper sauce has an exclamation mark at the end of its name for good reason. The Bhut Jolokia pepper used to make it comes from India and checks in with 1 million Scoville Heat Units. That ranks as insanely hot up against the girlie man bell pepper at 0 units, the wanna be jalapeno at 4,000 to 50,000 and the orange, so-called hot, habanero at 210,000, according to the institute.

Maybe this would give some context. CaJohn's is also coming out with a Jolokia smoked sausage, and the ingredient label says it contains 2 percent of the pepper. That ain't much, but it's supposed to pack a punch.

Now I like things spicier than most of my family and friends, but the thought of even handling something with Jolokia kind of scares me. If you're not afraid, a portion of the price for a bottle will go back to the institute for research and education.

It's supposed to be available from the company's Web site in a "couple of days".

Big money for big wind

They may not be pretty, but they're expensive. The towers that will take wind power to the rest of the state will run about 500 miles through the Panhandle, spaced every 1,000 to 1,200 feet (see the towers in the background at left).

At an Amarillo seminar today, wind transmission developers firmed up some of what they are planning for the $1 billion construction project that will eventually hit the Panhandle.

Sharyland will build at least 253 miles of line in the south central Panhandle, stretching into the South Plains. However, it could total more because the estimate is based on straight lines. The reality will be "meandering lines going around cemeteries, following county roads," said Mark Caskey, vice president of operations.

Cameron Fredkin, director of project development for Cross Texas Transmission reported his company will build about 230 miles of line from south of Childress to the Pampa area then to the Carson/Armstrong line south of Panhandle. A second line would go from south of Childress to western Briscoe County.

The construction probably won't start until late 2010 and wrap up in late 2013.

A fresh breeze

We're still waiting for someone to plug us into the rest of Texas with transmission lines, but local students got the benefit of wind power Saturday even before the big construction push starts.

Cielo Wind Power, of Austin, held its annual Earth Day Wind Ball in Vega on April 13 and awarded scholarships to students from around the area. To qualify, students wrote an essay about being stewards of the Earth and how they will continue to pursue that role.

Panhandle scholarship recipients include Shelley Fangman of Vega High School, Anna Rebecca Johnson of Adrian High School, Amelia Taylor of Clarendon High School, Trent Daniel Britten of Groom High School, Skyler Michele Conatser of Hedley High School, Chase Bohler of McLean School, Keslie Satterwhite of Panhandle High School and Tim Poland and Thomas Rapstine of White Deer High School.

Rory Schepisi, owner of Boot Hill Saloon in Vega and a former finalist on Next Food Network Star, provided a suitably Earth-friendly meal of organic beef tenderloin, and guests picked up ponderosa pine seedlings to plant. (Never discount a free tree in the Panhandle.)

Cielo is a privately held company that develops, owns and operates wind power facilities in the Southwest. Its latest local venture was the Wildorado Wind Ranch, right on the way to Vega from Amarillo. It sold a large interest in the venture to Edison Mission, of California, but the companies are working on the second phase that should stretch from Wildorado to just over the Potter County line along the Canadian River Breaks.

From The Ground Up

An interesting partnership

Today's newsletter from Playa Lake Joint Venture reports conservation groups and wind energy developers are teaming up to try to help out the lesser prairie chicken.

Actually, the wind groups outnumber the conservationists in the new effort to help out the bird that has seen its numbers drop to about 3 percent of the total a century ago. The developers include several who have plans to build in the Panhandle.

Human activity, especially building tall things like utility poles and low things like roads, have hacked up the prairie chicken's habitat, pushing it toward a possible listing on the endangered species list.

Having watched them booming, where the males shook their groove things for the females on a way-too-early morning in southwest Kansas, I kind of got attached to the unusual bird. I even felt a little sorry for them when the festivities were interrupted by a pheasant wandering through the lek, a tramped down area in the prairie where the romancing goes on.

The new partnership is called the American Wind Wildlife Institute and it's funded to the tune of $3 million for the first two years. Some of the goals are research, mapping, habitat mitigation and public education on where to put wind farms to reduce their impact on the prairie chickens and the interplay between wildlife and wind turbines.

According to the PLJV, the conservation members of the group include: The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and Union of Concerned Scientists.

The wind industry members include: AES Wind Energy, BP Wind Energy, Babcock & Brown, enXco, Clipper Windpower, E.ON, GE Energy, Horizon Wind Energy, Iberdrola Renewable Energies USA, Nordic Windpower, NRG Systems, Renewable Energy Systems Americas and Vestas Americas.