Inherit the Wind

The Gulf Coast is littered with the carcasses of unused oil
equipment. Now those structures are being repurposed to build the first
offshore wind farm in the United States.

The port of Iberia has never been busier. Situated on
a narrow canal leading to the Louisiana coastline, the docks here throb
with the sound of tugboats towing oil platforms to and from their
anchorages in the Gulf of Mexico. When a drilling site is depleted, the
platforms return to port; the docks are littered with rusting steel
hulks waiting for their next run.

In December, though, one of these platforms, stripped and refurbished
by a local startup, returned to sea with a new mission. The first of a
flotilla to come, it carried wind-monitoring equipment as well as radar
for tracking migratory birds. Those that follow will be topped not by
drilling rigs but by windmills. The turbines are bound for an
18-square-mile area roughly 10 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas,
where the first offshore wind farm in the US is under construction.
That’s right: The flower of sustainable energy is blooming in oil
country. Get ready for the Great Texas Wind Rush.

Formed in 2004, Wind Energy Systems Technology (WEST) is on track to
commercialize offshore wind power well ahead of more established and
better funded contenders with greener credentials. At $240 million and
150 megawatts of peak output—enough to power 45,000 homes—the project
is modest. But the eyes of the alt-energy world are upon it. “WEST may
not be in the mainstream, but they’re definitely serious,” says Walt
Musial at the National Wind Technology Center in Colorado. “They might
actually do it.”