World's Largest Wind Farm Goes Live In Texas

The world's largest wind farm has gone live in is producing energy in the heart of Texas. It's capable of producing enough power to run 230,000 homes. It is comprised of 627 wind turbines, each of which standing at least 350 feet tall and spread over nearly 100,000 acres.

The Roscoe Wind Complex, which began construction in 2007 and sprawls across four counties near Roscoe, is generating its full capacity of 781.5 megawatts, enough to power 230,000 homes, the German company E.ON Climate and Renewables North America said.

"This is truly sign milestone for us," said Patrick Woodson, the company's chief development officer. "In three years to be able to take this project from cotton fields to the biggest wind farm in the world is something we're very proud of."

The complex is about 220 miles west of Dallas and 300 miles south of the land where billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens had planned an even larger wind farm before he scrapped the idea in July.

Texas leads the nation in wind power production, and this wind farm tops the capacity record of 735.5 megawatts set by another West Texas farm southwest of Abilene.

Bear in mind that this massive wind power project produces a fraction of the needs of Texas. Current load requirements in Texas average 46,000mw. In fact, it provides 1.6% of the power needs (781 of 46,000). It's not nearly as reliable as other power sources, and it requires more land than other power sources to produce that power.

It is only an intermediate solution to the nation's energy needs; one that can be satisfied only through a commitment to pursue nuclear power that not only results in fewer emissions and pollutants, but doesn't have the land use issues that wind power has.