Wind Power Generates Green Economy In West Texas

The dust has barely settled here after the completion of the world's largest wind farm, but the sprouts of a "green" economy are already emerging among the cotton fields that have long been the staple of this West Texas rural community. Wind energy-service companies now sit on the same street as the old grocery store, and so do the headquarters of German-based E.ON Climate and Renewables, a subsidiary of the world's largest utility, E.ON AG (EOAN.XE), which owns the Roscoe wind farm. The project has 627 turbines--one for every two inhabitants of Roscoe--and employs about 70 technicians, including contractors and staffers. "It's helped the city kind of reinvent itself," said city manager Cody Thompson, who was helping put the finishing touches to the West Texas Wind Harvest Festival, featuring live music and helicopter tours of the 100,0000-acre project. Roscoe is situated in Nolan County, which has a population of about 17,000 and contains nearly 10% of all U.S. wind power-generating capacity--built at breakneck speed over the last decade. The financial crisis and bottlenecks in transmission capacity have slowed down the proliferation of wind turbines for now, but the area has established itself as a powerhouse for an emerging technology that could help reduce U.S. emissions of the heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change. This development occurs as critics of the Obama administration--including top Texas leaders--say that the number of "green" jobs won't replace the number of oil and gas jobs destroyed by U.S. policies to stem global warming...read more