Florida Sugar Lands To Get Wind Turbines

BELLE GLADE (CBS4/AP) – Land that used to supply satisfaction to America's sweet tooth is soon to be addressing a different appetite- one for electric power, thanks to a $250 million wind project.

A St. Louis wind energy firm has signed on to develop the project on thousands of acres of sugar land east of Belle Glade.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the 150-megawatt wind farm is being developed by Wind Capital Group of St. Louis.

The project is planned in an area used for growing sugarcane and will host up to 100 wind turbines that stand 262 to 328 feet tall on land between State Road 880 and Browns Farm Road in the Everglades Agricultural Area.

The turbines will be placed on leased land, allowing farmers to continue growing their crops.

The project is expected to bring up to 300 construction jobs to an economically-stressed area where unemployment averaged 44.9 percent in November.

Wind Capital Group founder Tom Carnahan said the Florida project is in the early phases, but Wind Capital hopes to be generating the equivalent in energy of more than 500 thousand barrels of oil annually by the end of 2012, according to the company Web site.

Wind Capital also is developing a wind farm in central Kansas and considering other projects in several states.

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