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| Third wind farm announced |
| Tom Carnahan says it will be near Conception, Mo. |
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Jimmy Myers |
| Higher Education Reporter |
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| A worker at the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm near King City, Mo., passes in front of large turbine blades Friday afternoon as crews continue to build the large structure in Gentry County. (TODD WEDDLE/St. Joseph News-Press) |
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| Sections of Suzlon S88 wind turbines are placed throughout a section of Gentry County near King City, Mo. The Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm is still under construction. (TODD WEDDLE/St. Joseph News-Press) |
KING CITY, Mo. - What was once only a fanciful dream in Tom Carnahan's noggin is now sprawling out over several square miles of windswept land.
Mr. Carnahan, president of Wind Capital Group, announced his third wind farm project in less than a year. The newest will be located near Conception, Mo., he said Friday.
"We're just getting started," Mr. Carnahan boasted to a crowd of legislators, utility folks, windmill manufacturers and a representative of John Deere Wind Development, the company that has invested more than $200 million in Mr. Carnahan's wind farm projects in Northwest Missouri. Landowners and community leaders also were in attendance at the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm near King City, the first of his projects that received funding.
Massive windmill blades, each 140 feet long, arrived at the Bluegrass site during the press conference Friday. Construction crews readied them for dispersal to 27 turbine sites spread out over nine miles of Gentry County farmland. The project is scheduled for completion by the end of November. Most of the sites have half of the four-part towers erected. They're waiting on the arrival of a 300-foot crane to put up the rest of the structures.
The Conception project will consist of 24, 2.1 megawatt turbines that can produce 50 megawatts of energy. The monks at Conception Abby will host one turbine and the substation, Mr. Carnahan said. The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in neighboring Clyde also have been tapped to host a turbine. About 20 landowners owning 7,000 acres around Conception have signed on to the wind farm project.
Mr. Carnahan made good use of his time and opportunity with so many of the state's lawmakers in the audience.
"You'll love hearing this from a Democrat," said the son of former Gov. Mel Carnahan and former U.S. Sen. Jean Carnahan, both Democrats, "but we need uniform, fair and predictable tax policy," regarding wind farms.
O.B. Clark, board president for Associated Electric, the Springfield-based utility that will purchase the power from the three wind farms, said creation of 150 total megawatts of electricity is a "good thing for us," partly because they acquire most of their electricity through non-renewable energy sources such as natural gas and coal.
"It's reliable," Mr. Clark said of the gesturing to the wind rippling the tent covering the conference area. |
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