Renewable Revolution

Bob_Wallace Top Commenter  • 12 hours ago 

There's an interesting back story to this...

"In 2006, Bill Miller was about to sell his boss’ cattle ranch, a 500-square-mile high-desert expanse in south-central Wyoming. A buyer was prepared to pay roughly $50 million for it. But something was gnawing at Miller. Every time he visited the place, called the Overland Trail Ranch, the wind there blew so fiercely he had to brace against it just to stay upright.

Miller’s boss, Philip Anschutz, had become one of the richest men in America—with a fortune of nearly $12 billion—by figuring out an abundance of ways to churn wealth out of real estate, from oil wells and railroads to sports arenas and cattle ranches.

One morning in 2006, as Miller stood on the barren bluffs of the Overland Trail Ranch, thinking about the sale of the property, he sensed an opportunity.

....

Miller was soon sitting in Anschutz’s 24th-floor office, which has a sweeping view of Denver, the high desert, and the Rocky Mountains beyond. The two of them knew that the market for wind energy was growing, and that other oil and gas companies had been poking around Wyoming’s windy corners. “I know we’re trying to sell this ranch,” Miller told his boss, “but we may have something here. So why don’t we peel this orange and see what we get?”

Anschutz, who reads widely about energy markets, seized on the idea at once. Though the pair didn’t realize it at the time, they were about to hatch plans for the largest single onshore wind farm in the world.

....

The winds of West Texas, home to some of the nation’s largest wind farms, are Class 4. Most wind power in these places is generated at night, when the winds blow the hardest; that’s the time, of course, when people need it the least.

But along the ridges of the Overland Trail Ranch are some of the only Class 7 winds in the nation. What’s more, the wind on the ranch starts up in the morning and gains force throughout the day, just when people are firing up their air conditioners and dishwashers. “We looked at the data and said, ‘I’ll be damned,’” Miller recalls. The property was like the Saudi Arabia of wind."    
http://www.psmag.com/nature-an...

Might want to give this piece a read and learn more about the two main players. Both far from being concerned about climate change. This is purely profits at work.
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eta: Tip of the banged up straw hat to ven for bringing attention to this massive project.