The New York Times: A Few Snags, but Hopes Are Still High for Offshore Wind in Texas - by Kate Galbraith

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A Few Snags, but Hopes Are Still High for Offshore Wind in Texas - by Kate Galbraith

While the race to develop offshore wind energy is heating up in the Northeast, things have hit a few speed bumps in the waters off Texas — already the nation’s leader in on-land wind power production. Wind Energy Systems Technology (W.E.S.T.), a company that holds all five offshore wind leases in state waters in the Gulf of Mexico, is still looking for $311 million to build a 62-turbine farm nine miles off of Galveston, in 50-foot depths. It recently lost two potential investors — Lehman Brothers and Wachovia — which foundered amid the recent financial turmoil. And the wind boom in the mesas of west Texas has so far served to reduce interest in offshore wind in the Gulf, according to Jerry Patterson, Texas’s land commissioner. Offshore wind projects have not yet been developed in the United States, mainly because it is far more expensive than onshore wind.