LoC: Black Clouds > Restless Wind

Boone Pickens, oil-man extraordinaire, thinks wind is awesome as well. Awesome enough to invest in it. Awesome enough to spend millions on ads telling you that we need to embrace it’s power. Wind is an energy we need to harness. And while we cannot tame it, we can certainly embrace it — at least Boone thinks so. So with the incoming administration and the call for change in our sources of energy I thought we’d take a gander at Boone’s plan, because honestly he’s one of the only people who seem to actually have a plan.

I find it funny however, that Al Gore has been clammoring for energy change since I was a undergrad student. His lectures for global warming orginated at my school. Gore has been for saving the planet for a while and now we have people such as Newt Gingrich joining the call. Enegry use, alternative energy plans, and conservation are no longer partisan issues. Global warming, on the other hand, is still being debated. And wether you believe in it or not, the majority of Americans believe we need to look to alternatives to provide energy for our country to run. We’ve already been adopting ethanol across the country. And while some argue that ethanol drives up the price of corn or drives down the average mile per gallon it is still an alternative. But it should be noted even though it’s helping to wean our dependency on the Middle East for energy, we’ve now turned to Brazil to import ethanol. Hey, at least it’s alternative. Which brings me back to Boone.

Boone is a man of industry. He’s a self-made man and has made billions from oil. His plan is good one, but he’s in it for the money. Don’t believe me?

“Don’t get the idea that I’ve turned green…My business is making money, and I think this is going to make a lot of money.”

The question is — can we blame him? I mean he’s old — he’s not going to be around much longer, but he’s still looking for alternatives that can make him money — but also keep our energy dependence on ourselves. Is that so wrong? It’s not the end all be all to energy conservation and alternatives, but it is a solution that’s here and available if we want it.

To end our dependence on foreign oil he’s proposed a two-part plan. The first is to convert all public transportation vehicles (buses, taxis, and transit systems) as well as service vehicles (police and fire) and semi-trucks to run on natural gas. Ironically, he’s the largest share-holder in Clean Energy which is the “the largest provider of vehicular natural gas (CNG and LNG) in North America with a broad customer base in the refuse, transit, shuttle, taxi, police, intrastate and interstate trucking, airport and municipal fleet markets.”

The second part of the plan is become the “Saudi Arabia of Wind Power.” He wants to harness the power of wind generate electricity for homes, in fact he believes up to 20% of the nations electricity can be powered by wind by 2018. Over 160 of American mayors are now supporting his plan. He’s also personally ordered over 675 wind turbines from GE and I’ve had family members approached who live in Oklahoma to host turbines on their land for a fee. So can it be all that bad?

It’s obvious Pickens family will be set for the next century (not that they aren’t already) if the U.S. decides to adopt his plan. but even Jon Stewart and his fans will ‘follow out him out the building.’ Boone has an answer to our problem. The question is — is it the right answer? What do you think…leave a comment below with your opinion.