Turbines Cropping Up at Huge Montana Wind Farm

From The New West Blog

By Matthew Frank, 7-18-08



	Judith Gap

Spain-based NaturEner officially (not literally) broke ground Thursday on the first phase of a 210-megawatt wind farm on the hills between Cut Bank and Shelby, the Great Falls Tribune reports.

The $500 million, 140-turbine wind farm, the first phase of which is scheduled to be completed by October, will be Montana’s largest. The only other of similar scale is Judith Gap (at 135 MW).

NaturEner might build an additional 200 turbines, but that—and a handful of other wind projects around the state—is contingent on the Montana Alberta Tie Line (MATL) being approved. Montana, with all its wind energy potential, is sorely lacking the transmission capacity to get it to market.

The governor was on hand Thursday. He said, “Wind energy means that’s American energy, produced in Montana with Montana workers.”

The electricity is California-bound.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.

By Matthew Frank, 7-18-08 | comments (1) | email story | print story

NEW WEST FEATURES More>>

Colorado Has Day in DNC Sun

By David Frey

McCain Picks Westerner, Woman for Vice President

By Courtney Lowery

A Flight Into Energy’s Future

By Richard Martin

The Anti-Conservation Mission of the NRA

By Bill Schneider

Comments

By Craig Moore, 7-18-08

The wind farm is just to the south of Ethridge. Turn at the L&M;welding sign on US2. It is quite visible from the highway.

Your Comment

Comment policy:

NewWest.Net encourages robust and lively, but civil participation from our readers. By posting here, you agree to the NewWest.Net terms of service. You agree to keep your comments on topic, respectful and free of gratuitous profanity. Contributions that engage in personal attacks, racism, bigotry, hatred or are otherwise patently offensive will be subject to removal.

Other than using a filter that scans for comment spam, we do not moderate contributions before they are posted and we do not review every thread, so we ask that you help us in keeping the discussions civil and appropriate. Please email info@newwest.net to notify us of comments that may violate these guidelines. Thanks for your help and cooperation. Click here for some tips on how to best interact on NewWest.Net.

Name

Remember my name and email address.

Notify me of follow-up comments.

NEW WEST TOPICS

NEW WEST LOCAL

From The New West Blog