Blown Away — Pickens’ Wind Farm

I’m blowing down this old dusty road
I’m blowing down this old dusty road
I’m blowing down this old dusty road
I ain’t gonna be treated this-a way. 

Is T. Boone Pickens moving on?

According to his critics, the decision by octogenarian oil man-turned-wind power/natural gas-envangelist Pickens to postpone his plans to develop a massive wind farm in Pampa, in North Texas, until at least 2013, is a sign that:

a) he was never serious about wind power
b) the one-time fierce corporate raider was only trying to hustle money from the government and private investors to pay for his latest enterprise
c) he is going to focus on some other money-making scheme in his remaining years
d) all of the above

Not so fast. Pickens never said that the Pickens Plan was going to be inexpensive or easy, but that it is about the long-term energy independence of the US, and to that cause he remains committed. His 10 year plan, in essence, takes the 20% of electrical power that uses natural gas as its primary source and replaces it with wind energy. The natural gas that is freed from power generation then becomes primarily a transportation fuel source, supplying a new generation of natural gas-powered automobiles.  In addition to reducing the US’ dependence on foreign oil by more than a third, natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel, and the US and Canada has it in abundance.

He claims that Obama has already taken the first step in completing the Plan by pushing for a “green” Energy Plan this year with lots of solar and wind initiatives; a natural gas bill will follow.

What has changed since he launched the program in July 2008?  He has invested more than $60 million of his own money in an advertising and organizing campaign. According to Pickens, he has managed to build an army of 1.5 million people who have signed on to his website to advocate for the Plan and push politicians to deliver. However, the economy has been transformed over the past 12 months. Gas is $2.50 a gallon instead of $4, and natural gas is cheap, both of which have taken some of the perceived urgency out of the situation. In addition, the collapse of the financial markets has made the freeing up of capital for investment in the $1 trillion price tag — to build a massive new national transmission infrastructure to tie the turbines (including his Pampa project) to the national power grid — almost impossible to obtain in the short term.

So Pickens has announced that he is delaying the Pampa wind farm — on which he plans to erect 2,700 turbines across 200,000 acres, generating 4,000 MW. He now hopes for financing in 2011 in order to have the turbines up and running by 2013. When completed, the plant will have power to service between 1 million and 1.5 million homes.

In 2013 Pickens will be 85. Is he really going to have the energy to create this new energy, to both advocate energy independence and put up a massive wind farm to prove his commitment?

As someone with a hard-working 84-year old Texan mother-in-law, I for one can attest to the staying power of some of this generation.

Check out US energy policy in 2015, and count the number of windmills around Pampa, and see if T. Boone’s still around.

I think we might all be blown away.

~

Photo by Kevin Dooley, used under a Creative Commons license.