While bureaucrats on the East Coast argue about if they’ll allow green, offshore energy wind turbines (remember the eight-year long battle that continues over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod?), Texas seems to be on the fast track to getting the nation’s first offshore wind farm.
CleanTechnica.com reports that last week, the Texas General Land Office awarded Houston-based renewable energy company Baryonyx leases for three wind farms, including two in the Gulf of Mexico:
The two offshore wind leases, for sites in the Gulf of Mexico, are the sixth and seventh leases for offshore wind farms signed by the General Land Office since 2005, the land office said in a statement. The third site is on state land in the Texas panhandle.
Under the lease, Baryonyx will pay the state’s Permanent School Fund a nominal fee to lease the two offshore areas for wind development, but its payments would climb if and when the company began producing energy on the site.
Once built, the two offshore wind farms would inject a minimum of $338 million into the state’s school systems over the 30-year lease, according to state officials.
Baryonyx said its offshore farms will each produce a minimum of 750 MW and use some of the world’s largest turbines, each one producing up to five MW.
Baryonyx still needs to do the environmental paperwork to get the deal done, but you can bet there will be a lot less opposition on the Gulf Coast than off of Martha’s Vineyard.