If your wind turbine conks out and it’s located off the Shetland Islands where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea, who are you going to call? That’s one of the questions that nagged Tony Hayward, CEO of BP and guided BP’s decision to abandon the UK and look to the wide open spaces of America.

Although, the British coasts have the best wind resource in Europe and the government provides large subsidies, BP’s concerns about the ability of a wind turbines to survive for 20 years in extreme offshore conditions, the ability to repair offshore turbines and the frustration at getting local approval for onshore alternatives, led BP to chose America instead, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

We have a wind farm in Texas that’s as big as Berkshire,” Mr. Hayward said in the interview.

However, because of the economic downtown and decrease in overall energy demand, U.S. wind power development has slowed.  The American Wind Energy Association, nonetheless, sees a bright future and has  increased its estimate of wind-power installations in the pipeline through 2010 from 3400 megawatts to 5000 megawatts.

BP was never a big player in the U.K. wind power market and, while slowed, the potential for growth in the U.S. is great. Perhaps those factors influenced BP decision to look to the wide open spaces of over here.

Further reading:

Cape Wind - James Gordon interview at GreenLegals

Map of European wind resources - http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/euromap.htm
Map of US wind resources - http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps.html
US wind power facts - http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-BusinessofGreen/idUSTRE56Q5VY20090727

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pjh/185488411/

Published earlier at Environmental Headlines Examiner

Copyright 2009 — K.J.Collins