Infinite Energy Resources LLC

Stafford County Company Developing a Wind Farm in Santa Rosa, NM

July 31, 2008 4:25 am

A Stafford County company got swept up in wind- and solar-power development long before Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens started making headlines for backing it.

Now Infinite Energy Resources LLC, a 3-year-old renewable-energy developer, is approaching potential equity partners about financing the $750 million, 300-megawatt Arabella wind (and possibly solar) farm near Santa Rosa, N.M.

"The growth in the wind-power business has been 45 percent, year over year," said Michael D. Moretz, Infinite Energy's chief operating officer. "It's just extraordinary growth. With T. Boone Pickens' new plan and the price of gas, it's only going to accelerate."

Pickens, a prominent voice in the oil industry, is using commercials and a recent Senate appearance to push his "Pickens Principles," which call for slashing Americans' dependence on foreign oil by a third in the next decade.

To do that, he recommends harnessing wind and solar power to produce 22 percent of the country's electrical needs, and using natural gas to fuel cars, trucks and other modes of transportation until the next generation of alternative fuels can be developed.  "He's my new hero," Moretz said. "He's made the country more aware of possibilities and ways we can re-look at what we're doing today."

Moretz, a Great Falls resident, has a background in building, owning and operating businesses. He teamed up with Elsa Newland of Stafford, the company's president and a former consultant for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to found Infinite Energy Resources in November 2005.

Newland, who grew up on a farm, said she kept hearing complaints from farmers that they weren't able to produce enough to hang on to land that had been in their families for generations. She thought help might lie in the increasing number of federal grant applications for renewable-energy development that came across her desk.  "You can't live on farming alone anymore," Newland said. "You have to do other things."

Wind power's appeal for farmers is that the turbines needed for a project don't take up much room. That means a rancher can continue farming while collecting royalties or rent for the use of his land. In open, flat terrain, for example, a utility-scale wind plant requires about 60 acres per megawatt of installed capacity. But only 5 percent is actually occupied by turbines, access roads and other equipment, according to the company's Web site, infiniteenergyresources.com.  A landowner can expect to earn about $3,000 a year per utility-scale wind turbine, or about $14,000 for a 250-acre farm with no more than 2 to 3 acres removed from production, the Web site said.

Infinite Energy also has an option to produce some of the power at its Arabella wind farm by harnessing the sun. That's the only way to make the project viable, Newland said, because the wind velocity there isn't always high enough to generate electricity.

"Our role is to develop the sites and get them ready for construction," Moretz said. "We do the permitting and wind regime [average annual wind speed] measurement. You have to put up meteorological towers to measure wind velocity over a period of time. It takes a substantial amount of wind [about 20 miles per hour] to move turbines."

Newland said she first started looking for sites in Maine, then Colorado and Kansas. She finally settled on New Mexico, which currently ranks 10th nationwide in wind-power production.  Not only does the state have a number of potential sites for wind farms--Infinite Energy is looking at five others--but its governor, Bill Richardson, is a former U.S. secretary of energy and supports wind- and solar-energy projects, she said.

Infinite Energy Resources probably will spend another year and a half evaluating the Santa Rosa site, clearing environmental hurdles and obtaining permits, said Moretz. He hopes that by then it will have a third-party partner that will buy the turbines, do the construction and operate the wind farm.  "It takes eight to 10 months to build it," he said. "In about 21/2 years, roughly, we'll be operating our first wind generation facility in New Mexico. The power will probably be sold to Arizona and California."

Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com