T Boone Pickens Plans Massive Wind Farms Instead of Foreign Oil
What is it with the wind-power fanatics? Apparently, T Boone Pickens at www pickensplan com thinks America can build enough wind turbines within 10 years to replace 22% of the total energy needs of the USA! Does that seem fanciful to anyone else?
Here in the UK we’re committed to spending billions (£100 billion? $200 billion) on wind power, including building them at sea, which is a very tricky thing to do. We’re already subsidising each and every turbine being put up and the electricity they generate. Amazingly, we even fall for the marketing hype from the turbine manufacturers who quote “installed capacity” instead of the actual real-world output which relies on the wind to be, like, blowing. We also need backup power stations, presumably running “hot”, for when the wind isn’t blowing.
In the Telegraph, Christopher Booker says, “I have spoken before of “the great wind scam”, and how its only beneficiaries are the developers, who now make nearly twice as much money from the derisory amount of electricity their turbines produce as the companies that provide 99 per cent of our power by conventional means.
For each megawatt of capacity, a windfarm developer gets on average £130,000 a year from selling his electricity to the grid, plus another £109,000 a year in subsidy paid by the rest of us in higher electricity bills under the Government’s “renewable obligation” scheme.”
So what does T Boone Pickens say to that? Is the situation different in the USA because the wind always blows a gale down the Rockies… or is it the case that he is a tycoon developing wind farms and they earn a fortune in subsidies? In his movie he says, “we’re building a big wind farm here, at Pampa Tx, which will be the largest in the world” (movie is at www.pickensplan com). Hmmm.
I just found this. 25% ROI with little risk. Hmmm.
What do you think? Is Wind Power too expensive? Are we being ripped off in the name of “green” energy? Is there a better solution?
July 8th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
If it’s “fanciful,” someone ought to tell Denmark (18.5% of total power needs in 2005), Spain and Portugal (10% of total power needs in 2007), and Germany (largest absolute amount of installed capacity, I don’t have a percentage). The USA, anyway, is potentially the “Saudi Arabia” of wind (in terms of resource: just read up on “The Dust Bowl” and you’ll see why), and a whole lot of Spanish, Portugeuse, and Danish companies are buying/leasing up “huge tracts o’ land” in the Plains states for wind development. I can think of lots of things (e.g., attacking Iraq and Iran) that would be dumber than filling West Texas (a/k/a dark side of the moon) with wind turbines. The true constraint, in the US anyway, is transmission (i.e., getting the power from the wind resource — where very few live — to the “load” — the coasts, where the people live). Industry estimates are that this would take $100B: that’s 1/6 of what certain US Presidents say that the Iraq War has cost so far, and not everyone accepts this as an accurate reckoning.
DJL
July 9th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Pickens is a businessman, not a fanatic. Once someone like Pickens (who made billions in oil) gets behind something, it’s time to take it seriously because he wouldn’t be doing it if he didn’t think there was a real market need where he could make a lot of money. Pickens endorsement of wind power does more for its credibility than the support of the fanatical environmentalists combined.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:55 am
I live in the heart of ‘wind country’ in Texas. It is an amazing sight to see all the giant windmills streatching for miles and miles without end. The one thought that continually goes through my head is “I wish I owned the land these giants are sitting on”.
I have heard that each windmill generates a minimum of $500 per month for the landowner who leases the land! Who says buying up desert property is a bad idea!
July 10th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
There is a public Forum for discussions about Pickens plan :
www.pickensenergyplan.com
Cheers.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
T. Boone is an oilman who sees $$ on the horizon! He may be altruistic in his mind but who knows better than him where the future money will be!