AMARILLO – Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is planning a wind energy production project for the Panhandle that his people say would be the nation’s largest.
KVII TV in Amarillo reports Pickens outlined his plans to an invitation-only audience at a close-door meeting Tuesday in Pampa.
Mike Boswell is a spokesman for Pickens’ Dallas-based Mesa Group. He tells the station that Pickens told the select audience about the water rights Mesa owns in the Panhandle and the amount of wind that blows across the land.
He says early plans are to develop most of the generator complex east and northeast of Amarillo in Gray and Roberts counties, with a little lapping into adjoining Hemphill and Wheeler counties. The wind-driven turbines would generate two to four thousand megawatts and cost $3-6 billion to build.
Boswell says the four-county complex might be four times the AES wind farm in Abilene, which is now the nation’s biggest.
Boswell says construction is now planned to start in 2010, with construction to take six and a half years to complete.