Two companies that encountered political anger for their plans to use Chinese-built turbines on a wind farm in West Texas have announced plans to build a new turbine factory - in the United States. The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, an investment firm, and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese turbine maker, said in a statement on Tuesday that they had signed an agreement to build "a new production and assembly plant in the United States that will supply highly advanced wind energy turbines to renewable energy projects throughout North and South America."

TXU, if its buyout agreement is approved, will double the amount of money it spends on wind power purchases. The deal between the Texas utility giant and a group of investors led by Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. is the largest private investment merger in U.S. business history at $45 billion. The buyout comes to $32 after TXU’s $13 billion in debt is paid off. Included in the group of investors are Texas Pacific Group, Goldman Sachs & Co., GS Capital Partners, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley. Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley are already investors in the wind market. Under the agreement, shareholders would receive $69.25 per share, 25 percent more than the closing price Friday when the deal was being finalized.

The Obama administration should bar a $1.5 billion wind-farm project in Texas from receiving U.S. government stimulus funds because most of the power turbines would be made in China, Senator Charles Schumer said. "The idea that stimulus funds would be used to create jobs overseas is quite troubling," Schumer, a New York Democrat, wrote in a draft of a letter he said yesterday he would send to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. ...Schumer said he would pursue legislation if necessary to prevent stimulus funds from being used for the Texas project.

According to wind developer FPL, wind conditions over the 3rd financial quarter were the least productive in the last 3 decades in the Great Plains -- go figure. Over the quarter, wind power generation came in 38% below expected totals, down 47% in September alone.

Texas cares little for environmental niceties. Its governor, Rick Perry, bashes the Environmental Protection Agency at every opportunity, and recently branded the climate bill that passed the House of Representatives a "legislative monstrosity." Yet the oil-and-gas state has nonetheless emerged as the nation's top producer of a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines. The world's largest wind farm began operations in Texas this month, and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state.

... a coalition of local utilities is grappling with one of the thorniest challenges in the field of renewable power: how to store the excess energy windmills create when demand is low so it can be used later, when the need is greater. The group is building a system that will steer surplus electricity generated by a nearby wind farm to a big air compressor. Connected to a deep well, the compressor pumps air into layers of sandstone. Some 3,000 feet down and sealed from above by dense shale, the porous sandstone acts like a giant balloon. Later, when demand for power rises, this flow is reversed.

A Sino-US consortium yesterday announced plans for a US$1.5 billion, 600MW wind farm in Texas, with China supplying all the turbines and most of the funding. The 36,000-acre wind farm ...is a joint venture between state-backed Chinese firm Shenyang Power Group, US wind farm developer Cielo Wind Power and private equity firm US Renewable Energy Group. Most of the funding for the project will come from Chinese banks, with loan guarantees and grants provided by the US federal government's economic stimulus package.

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Multiple reports and studies, especially those published in the last year, suggest the United States, specifically the East Coast, has great potential for offshore wind. The politicized debate over whether to develop wind power offshore has dragged on since the late 1990s, when the first project was proposed in Cape Cod, Mass., off the Nantucket Sound. Since then there have been several other proposals, none of which has been completely approved.

WASHINGTON - An unusual coalition of conservationists and coal advocates told Congress on Tuesday that before the nation continues its rapid expansion of wind power, an assessment is needed of how many bats and birds are maimed and killed by wind turbines' blades. That study should be followed up with regulations to protect those species, witnesses told a House Natural Resources subcommittee.

T. Boone Pickens' $10 billion wind farm - the cornerstone of his plan to build thousands of wind turbines from Texas to Canada - is about to be downsized because the oil tycoon can't raise money in the current credit crunch, the billionaire confirmed to the Observer. ...Asked about his plans to build a giant wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, Pickens said: "I've started it, but let's don't go into that, my project is getting ready to get downsized pretty quick. "You can't get financing," he said. "But that will all come back."

The Energy Department announced Monday it will provide $4 million to two projects in Texas and Massachusetts for research into designing and building the next generation of large wind turbine blades.

U.S. Rep. Randy Neugebauer, representing Young County and part of Archer County, is seeking the feasibility study as wind energy development moves forward in Texas. "The basic point behind this is let's look at it from every single angle to make sure that we're doing this right and there aren't any mistakes," Neugebauer spokesman Michael Frohlich said.

"Wind needs a dance partner," says David Hawkins, principal engineer for renewable energy at the grid-running California Independent System Operator in Folsom, Calif. ...Shortages degrade reliability and push up prices. Wholesale power prices surged to $1,055 a megawatt hour in West Texas on Feb. 26 versus $299 elsewhere in the state. In a long-planned move, Texas on Saturday raised its price ceiling to $2,250 a megawatt hour from $1,500. Two days later, it hit the ceiling for the first time as wind production again trailed off. "Demand was going up as wind production was going down, so it amplified the effect," said Dan Jones, the state's independent electricity-market monitor.

Blue H's 328-foot-tall wind turbine is different from the offshore generators that have sparked opposition from U.S. coastal residents. Because it sits atop pontoons, this turbine can operate in water farther from shore, where winds are stronger and more reliable - and where it's not visible from land. ...Linowes said that those opposing onshore wind projects - which often are gigantic schemes spanning tens of thousands of acres - welcome proposals to place turbines out in the water. She calls current onshore turbines "dinosaurs" and says she finds Blue H's idea appealing because it shows "that we should look to new technology rather than bigger land-based turbines," she said.

Although T. Boone Pickens has become somewhat of a celebrity as of late - giving speeches and appearing on national television in interviews and commercials - the Oklahoma native is finding falling energy prices are making it difficult for his eponymous Pickens Plan to gain traction. Furthermore, a host of other outside factors have cropped up to make the Texas oilman's push for renewable energy increasingly difficult ...Depressed fuel prices, while easier on consumers' wallets, hinder efforts to persuade companies and individuals to invest in renewable energy resources, especially when combined with a shortage of discretionary cash.

GE Energy Financial Services, which invests in energy projects, expects to finish two new wind farms in Texas and Illinois by the third quarter of this year, ahead of any potential tax credit expiration. GE is developing the projects with Invenergy Wind LLC. The farm in Texas, east of Lubbock, will have 100 wind turbines for capacity of 150 megawatts. Mr. Howell declined to say how much the project will cost. Wind developers who can't finish their projects this year could face a second problem. Global demand for wind turbines is so hot that developers must order the equipment months in advance.

Pump jacks and wind turbines were at odds in an energy bill the House approved this week, creating a quandary for North Texas where both could share the horizon. ...But he thinks it's unfair to penalize one sector of the energy industry to benefit another, Michael Frohlich, spokesman for the Lubbock Republican, said. Increasing taxes on five of the biggest oil companies will drive up energy prices for consumers, Frohlich said. "The Democrats are shooting at big oil companies, but they're hitting Americans in their wallets," Frohlich said.

Some call it a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels, but others point to significant environmental costs. In Kansas, where winds blow strong, the push for clean energy includes not only new wind turbines but also new nuclear-power plants as part of a "carbon-free" solution to climate change. It's an idea that may be catching on. At least 11 new nuclear plants are in the design stage in nine states, including Virginia, Texas, and Florida, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute website. But that carbon-free pitch has researchers asking anew: How carbon-free is nuclear power? And how cost-effective is it in the fight to slow global warming? "Saying nuclear is carbon-free is not true," says Uwe Fritsche, a researcher at the Öko Institut in Darmstadt, Germany, who has conducted a life-cycle analysis of the plants. "It's less carbon-intensive than fossil fuel. But if you are honest, scientifically speaking, the truth is: There is no carbon-free energy. There's no free lunch."

A provision in the national energy bill that has been stalled by Texas' two senators would probably boost the market for one of the state's fastest-growing sources of power: wind. ...Although wind farms remain expensive to build, they benefit from a federal tax incentive and have become attractive to both traditional utilities and green-power start-ups. But a national standard is opposed by many large utilities and several members of the House from Texas, including Joe Barton of Ennis. ...Skeptics who are against the renewable standard said that wind power doesn't need any more incentives. The technology has taken off so quickly that there is a two-year waiting list to buy wind turbines, said Sen. Pete Domenici, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

News that $450 million in federal stimulus money might go toward installing Chinese-made wind turbines in Texas prompted criticism on Thursday, with Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, calling on the Obama administration to deny federal financing. According to partners in the deal, the proposed 600-megawatt wind farm, announced late last week, would be built on 36,000 acres in West Texas using 240 wind turbines manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems of Shenyang, China.