Warren Buffett, Wind Investor? (BRK-A, GE)

Mid-American Energy, a holding of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A) and a holding of Warren Buffett, is about to get into the U.K. offshore wind power business if the reportsfrom the weekend in the U.K’s Times Online are accurate. The new plan is meant to go off in phases off the coast of Kent in the U.K. and this round is said to be approximately 1 billion pounds.  That is $1.61 billion in today’s dollars and is actually only about one-twelfth of the total estimated size of the auctions that will be made in the coming months and years.

This capital intensive plan is also said to require hundreds of miles of new undersea cables needed in order to bring the electric power from the project on to the U.K.’s power grid.  General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) just bought a technology company that is specific for offshore wind power projects.  The future value of that sale is looking more and more as though the company will have a steadier and steadier flow of revenues.

We have been wondering which American firms would try to get in on this U.K. venture.  General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was one company we expected to take part, as was Mid-American.  This project may have dozens of companies, mostly British and European, involved by the time it is all said and done.

Berkshire will be only one of many companies here.  Maybe Buffett will get to sing a Limerick at his next annual meeting, “There was a man from Kent…”

JON C. OGG