The biggest wind energy project on this side of the Earth and its tiny power output

General Electric wind machines will soon fill 1600 square miles of New Mexico, but an Arizona nuclear station on just 6.4 square miles already generates 4 times the expected carbon free electricity.

“Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation.” – Edward R. Murrow

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In January, General Electric announced its participation in the largest wind power pollution of a landscape in the history of this side of the Earth. According to GE, this is what is going to happen near the “tiny town of Corona” in New Mexico:

... GE Vernova will deploy 674 of its new “workhorse” 3.6-154 wind turbines for the SunZia project and its developer, Pattern Energy. When completed in 2026, this colossus of a project will weigh in at a total 3,500 MW, making it the largest wind farm — and in fact the largest renewables project — in the Western Hemisphere…

And by “largest” they mean “spread out over one million acres,” or roughly 1,600 square miles.

Grand Canyon National Park is 500 miles to the west of Corona. As I note in a new analysis of GE’s turbine business, the entire park sits on 1,900 square miles. That includes the Grand Canyon itself (big enough to be seen from orbit), plus all the roads, viewing areas, buildings and wildlands on the north and south rims of the national park.

As our president once said in a different context, the 1,600 square miles GE’s wind machines will soon devour in New Mexico is literally a “big fucking deal!”

Is it worth it?

Here is how I described the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station that is 575 miles to the west of Corona: 

From a mere 6.4 square mile plot of land 60 miles from downtown Phoenix, Palo Verde annually produces more than 31 terawatt hours (TWh) of zero-carbon electricity . . . GE is boasting that it needs 244 times more land than Palo Verde to produce just 25 percent of the carbon-free electricity . . . a nuclear facility opened more than 30 years ago is still nearly 1,000 times more efficient with land use (i.e., “the environment”) than GE’s latest and greatest wind machines will be.

There’s another ironic surprise in this wasteful story. To read the whole analysis and learn what happened to a GE wind turbine shortly after the massive Corona project was announced, please check out “General Electric’s Taxpayer-Powered Wind Machines.”