T. Boone Pickens, venerable oil man and corporate raider, has an energy plan that he thinks will save America.  A reader emailed me a link to it and wanted me to post it here on Say Anything to see what we think.

You can read all about the plan here on Pickens’ website.  My reaction?  There’s not really much new here.

Pickens wants to build a massive wind farm that stretches from Texas to North Dakota because, as he puts it using words that are already very familiar to this North Dakotan, Midwest America is the “Saudi Arabia of wind energy.” But there are problems.  First is this:

Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.

That’s a lot of money, but it’s a one-time cost. And compared to the $700 billion we spend on foreign oil every year, it’s a bargain.

It’s a bit of a farce to say that the $1 trillion investment he talks about is a one-time cost.  Wind farms need to be maintained, after all, as does the transmission infrastructure to bring that power to market.  And all that money isn’t likely to offset the money we spend on foreign oil because I don’t see wind energy, or even natural gas which Pickens predicts will be used more for vehicle fuel once his wind farm is built, replacing gasoline any time soon.

Also, $1 trillion dollars is a lot of money to invest into something that isn’t marketable.  There would not be a single profitable wind farm in America were it not for heavy government subsidies.  If wind power were such a great idea for supplying this country with power it seems to me that the private sector would already be doing it and people like Pickens, who clearly has mountains of capital he could invest, wouldn’t be trying to convince politicians to invest taxpayer money into this scheme.

Finally, there is still the question of where we get our power if the wind isn’t blowing.  I don’t how it is where the rest of you are from, but here in North Dakota during peak times of power consumption - like when it’s really, really hot outside - the wind doesn’t blow much.  So to avoid brownouts and blackouts wind power would have to be backed up by baseline power plants capable of powering the entire grid when the wind isn’t blowing.  Which might not be often, but given what America’s expectations are for power having even just 3 or 4 days a year of limited power supply is too much.

I’m not against wind energy per se, but I think that investment into wind energy should come entirely from the private sector with the only government contribution being a “clearing of the way” of any impeding, unnecessary regulation.  When wind energy is ready for prime time, when the power it produces is competitive price-wise with other types of energy and when its consistency problems are worked out, it will be a great alternative.

But until then wind energy is just going to be a pipe dream.