PORT IMPORTS WIND

Ironically, one of the country's busiest crude oil ports, the Port of Freeport on the Texas Gulf coast, is now busy bringing in wind.

It’s man-sized work, requiring special cranes, because wind turbines with 1-to-2 megawatt capacities are huge. The tower base is 13+ feet across. The nacelle, the generator housing atop the tower, weighs 80,000 pounds and sits ~290 feet high. Each blade is 3 times the length of an 18-wheeler trailer.

After the port offloads the turbine parts, they must be trucked to their destinations. Many are delivered to Texas, the biggest U.S. wind power installer. Many others go to states in the wind-rich Midwest. Some go as far as Oregon or upper New England.

The nacelle requires a truck with 13 axles. The blades, a matched and balanced set, require 3 special trucks. The tower requires 4 more. Each turbine is usually delivered by a convoy of 10 trucks.

The point: Before wind energy begins providing jobs in installation and maintenance, it first provides jobs in the ports and to the trucking business.

Wind power is already keeping longshoremen and truckers busy. But wind now only generates ~2% of U.S. electricity. The industry plans to ramp up to 20% of U.S. power over the next 2 decades. That's a lot of cranes and tractor-trailers.

Freeport has long handled all the imported oil for the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a stored capacity against supply disruptions. Now Freeport also brings in the hardware for a different kind of strategic energy reserve, a kind that cannot be cut off and will not run out.

Wind at the Port of Freeport. From Brightcove via the Houston Chronicle.

Business blowing in; Port of Freeport has plenty of work unloading turbines as the use of wind energy grows
Richard Stewart, November 2, 2008 (Houston Chronicle)

WHO
Suzlon Wind Energy Corp.; Clipper Windpower; Vestas Wind Systems

WHAT
Ports and truckers are getting man-sized work and plenty of it from the wind energy industry. Example: The port of Freeport.

Trucking turbine blades is a big job. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- Freeport began importing wind 2 years ago.
- Freeport expects wind volume to double in 2009.
- Freeport was named in 1912 for the Freeport Sulphur Co., which took millions of tons of sulphur from nearby Bryan Mound.

WHERE
- Port of Freeport, Brazoria County, Texas, on the Gulf coast.
- Bryan Mound is the site of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
- The closest wind farms are several hundred miles across the state in West Texas.
- Wind hardward made in India, Brazil, Spain, China, Denmark and other countries are imported through Freeport.
- Suzlon Wind Energy Corp. began in India and now operates in 20 countries.
- Most of Freeport’s wind hardware goes to West Texas, the Texas Panhandle and the Midwest, from Oklahoma to North Dakota and Montana.
- Hardware delivered through Freeport has gone to upper New York state and Oregon.

WHY
- Freeport has a $9.03 billion annual economic impact.
- Its 60-acre area allows room to handle and manage the wind industry’s giant hardware.
- Suzlon Wind Energy Corp. is Freeport’s biggest wind importer. Suzlon shipped ~ 100 wind turbines from India through Freeport this year and expects to move ~ 300 through next year.
- Suzlon, the world's 5th-biggest turbine maker, chose Freeport so it could be one of the largest customers.
- Clipper Windpower and Vestas Wind Systems also use Freeport.
- Millions of tons of U.S rice go out through Freeport and 6.5 million bananas a week come in.
- The port is 25th in the U.S. by total tonnage, 14th by foreign tonnage.

Loading turbine blades requires a crane. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Brian Evans, logistics coordinator, Suzlon, on why his company chose the Port of Freeport: "We wanted a place that had a lot of room…"
- Michael Wilson, director of trade development, Port of Freeport: "We expect the wind turbine business to increase every year for about the next five years…"
- Michael Wilson, director of trade development, Port of Freeport: "The next generation of turbines may be even larger and will be put offshore in farms so far out we won't be able to see them…[The next generation of turbines] will be beneath the water, harnessing energy from the tides and currents."