Can it be? A wind farm near Taos starts to take shape -- maybe.

The spinning blades of 65 tall, white wind turbines could soon be harvesting electrical energy out of thin air on the high plains west of the Rio Grande Gorge. Or not, pending the outcome of further testing to see if the wind is sufficient.

Taos attorney Eliu Romero told the Taos News last week that he and other investors in two separate wind farms still need wind data from the sites near Tres Piedras, about 30 miles northwest of Taos, to determine whether their plan is feasible. In the meantime, Romero is scheduled to go before the Taos County Commission next week for permission to install more than five dozen towers, each of which is 284 feet tall.

“We are going ahead with the permit in hopes that the winds pan out,” Romero told reporter Andy Dennison.

On paper, the Tres Piedra plan makes sense. Wind power is getting cheaper all the time, and in the right location it can cost less than electricity from solar or natural gas, according to the California Energy Commission. New Mexico is ranked 12th in the nation for its wind energy potential, and is 10th in the nation in actual wind energy production, the Albuquerque Journal wrote in March. To date, the state produces just under 500 megawatts of power from wind — enough juice for about 235,000 average-size New Mexico homes, according to statistics from Public Service Company of New Mexico.

In fact, PNM buys a portion of its power from a Florida company, FPL Energy, which in 2003 opened one of the largest wind farms in the country, the 200-megawatt New Mexico Wind Energy Center. But tellingly, FPL sited its wind farm not in northern New Mexico, but in the east, between Albuquerque and Clovis.

It's apparent why that site was selected with one glance at a map of the wind potential in New Mexico prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Program. The map shows a streak of pink, purple and red — meaning good, excellent or outstanding winds year-round — in a band running from roughly Ruidoso to Clines Corners. Up near Taos the map is mostly white, meaning the wind potential is poor.

Romero told the Taos News that six months of testing earlier this year showed wind speeds and endurance at two sites near Tres Piedras have been "acceptable," and that another five or six months of data are needed. “But we are going into the less windy part of the year,” he said, and that could make or break the project.

Taos wouldn't be the only place where interest in wind energy may exceed the output. The Miami Herald reported today that utilities, including FPL, are under pressure to move toward green energy, regardless of whether it makes good financial sense. FPL, which bills itself as the largest producer of wind power in the United States, has "insisted for years it wouldn't build a wind farm in Florida because the state's breezes weren't strong enough," reporter John Dorschner wrote. But last year, pressed by the Florida public and by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist — and two days after its proposed new coal-fired plant was rejected by the state — FPL announced plans for a small wind project near the Atlantic coast.

The company now says there is adequate wind to make the 20-megawatt project feasible. But between zoning hurdles and the fact that wind at the site is only half that of major wind farms elsewhere, one environmentalist explained the St. Lucie wind farm this way: "It's political. Gov.Crist wants to be seen as this green Republican, and FPL wants to make him happy. ... The wind hasn't changed. The technology hasn't changed.''

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