INHERIT THE WIND:CEO says Padre shoreline offers best site for renewable energy in Gulf

RYAN HENRY
 

The former chief executive officer of Superior Renewable Energy says plans for a major offshore wind farm near Padre Island could sink before the first turbine is ever placed in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The economics today don’t work,” said John Calaway, the former CEO. “It’s underwater. The numbers just don’t work right now.”

Although equipment depreciates in five years, wind farms inland offer a different financial outlook and already represent a viable alternative to coal-burning power plants, Calaway said.

"We intend to build some substantial onshore wind facilities,” Calaway said, including a farm in Kenedy County inland from the proposed offshore site.

The United States has no offshore wind facilities “to date,” Calaway said. “There are, though, a number of these projects in Europe that are in the offshore and currently producing [energy].”

Calaway gave the proposal to develop the offshore wind farm near the Padre Island National Seashore only a 30 percent chance of getting approval from Babcock & Brown Renewable Holding Inc. because of the economics involved.

Babcock & Brown, an Australian company, purchased Superior Renewable Energy LLC this summer. Calaway will lead the group’s operations in organic energy development.

However, if the proposal succeeds, the first offshore turbines could start appearing within the next 7 to 8 years, Calaway said.

Officials at the Texas General Land Office are excited about renewable energy, especially offshore wind farms.

GLO Commissioner Jerry Patterson said the state has bid for a proposal by the U.S. Department of Energy to construct a large-scale wind turbine research and development station on the Texas coast.

“The race for wind energy is like a modern day space race,” Patterson said through a public statement in August. “In Texas, our program is go for launch. We’re charging ahead to bring a large-scale turbine testing facility to the Texas coast.

The proposed site for the research-focused wind farm along the Texas coast has not been disclosed.

However, Calaway said the 80,000 acres his company leased from the Texas General Land Office is the best offshore site in the entire Gulf Coast for wind-based energy production. That lease is 2 ½ miles offshore Padre Island National Seashore.

“When we decided on that particular location, we studied technically the wind speeds and physical conditions all the way from Houston to the Mexican border,” Calaway said. “And it just so happened that this particular site we leased, from a technical view, we believe has by far the highest wind speeds of anywhere in the entire Gulf of Mexico.”

Shoreline geometry, water depth and atmospheric conditions “culminate in that area,” Calaway said.

Furthermore, the peak wind speeds at the site match the time of peak energy consumption inland, an important condition because the energy cannot be stored. It’s this factor that makes coastal wind farms attractive to the industry.

“The time of day when the wind blows [there] is ideal,” he said.

In contrast, wind farms in West Texas hit their peak production at night when energy consumption is minimal, Calaway said.

The turbines, with blade diameters likely to be longer than football fields, would be visible from shore.

“The site that we selected there, there is no one who lives anywhere around there,” Calaway said. “It is completely uninhabited. Fishermen who are out there will see them.”

The company will not build turbines offshore the Town of South Padre Island, Calaway said. He explained that the company plans to avoid sites that would spoil horizons for the real estate industry and property owners, who would then become rivals to the company’s developments.

“And anyone who does [build offshore South Padre Island], go after them because they’re not making sense,” Calaway told Island business people gathered for a SPI Chamber of Commerce meeting Wednesday.

Calaway acknowledged concerns about bird migrations along the Texas Coast.

“It’s a complicated question, and it’s not a two word answer to it,” Calaway said. “[Wind farms] are not benign to birds, and really all forms of energy production have their pros and their cons. We have no source of energy that is environmentally perfect.”

Birds will on occasion die from hitting a turbine, Calaway said.

“It’s a sensitive subject. Most people really don’t know what the biological affects on avian species will be from wind turbines, and quite frankly, there needs to be more research on this issue,” Calaway said. “Though I will tell you, there are hundred of studies—both pre-construction and post-construction studies—that suggest that really wind turbines are not big bird terminators.”

A “bird or two a year” might hit each turbine, Calaway said, but the wind farm would have “no significant biological impact on species.”

“Birds are not as stupid as people think. They avoid these things and can avoid them.” Calaway said. “The turbine blades turn very slow [25 rpm]. Birds avoid wind farms like the plague.”

He added that most birds migrate above the turbines or flock around the site, which he said has been observed with radars elsewhere. Birds are at greatest risk of “random occurrences” when visibility is low due to fog or storms, he said.

“I think it’s important for people to consider the human impact [of other forms of power generation],” Calaway said. “With wind turbines, there are no emissions and no water use—and water is a big issue. It’s going to become a bigger issue as populations grow.”