Oilman T. Boone Pickens Wants to Create National Wind-energy Network in the US

T. Boone Pickens has started what USA Today reports will be “the biggest public policy ad campaign ever” to promote a national economic shift from oil to renewable fuels, primarily wind. The campaign is centered on the PickensPlan website, which shows the oil tycoon explaining how and why the US can and must break its dependence on foreign oil —for which American consumers pay $700 billion per year— by transitioning to an energy economy founded on exploiting the massive wind resources of the Great Plains.

The Texas oil baron uses information about the wind resources available across the world to declare that the United States is “the Saudi Arabia of wind”. If we look at other studies that have been done, rooted in a US-government study published in 1991, just three midwestern states possess enough wind to power the entire US economy, with total aeolic development potentially leading to the US becoming a wind-energy exporting powerhouse.

In 2003, the Earth Policy Institute reported that:

In 1991, a national wind resource inventory taken by the U.S. Department of Energy startled the world when it reported that the three most wind-rich states —North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas— had enough harnessable wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs. Now a new study by a team of engineers at Stanford reports that the wind energy potential is actually substantially greater than that estimated in 1991.

The new estimates showed that “Wind power can meet not only all U.S. electricity needs, but all U.S. energy needs.” Since the mid-1990s, wind has been the fastest-expanding form of energy-extraction on the planet. The 2003 EPI report noted that “Rising from 4,800 megawatts of generating capacity in 1995 to 31,100 megawatts in 2002, it increased a staggering sixfold.” Since 2002, it jumped another 333%, reaching 100,000 megawatts in March 2008, according to Jonathan Dorn, also of EPI.

Pickens notes that “”Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn’t happen. It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It’s just under 70% now. Where do you think we’re going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we’re importing 80% of our oil?” He notes also that, while other problems such as healthcare costs are vital to the nation’s economic future, “If you don’t solve the energy problem, it’s going to break us before we even get to solving health care and some of these other important issues.”

And wind is a booming business in the state of Texas, ranked 2nd among US states in potential wind resources. According to USA Today:

Were it a country all by itself, Nolan County, Texas, would rank sixth on the list of wind-energy-producing nations, says Wortham. Year-round wind conditions, the terrain, low land prices and a small population make it an ideal location for wind farms. It already produces more wind-generated electricity in a year than all of California.

Pickens’ plan to speed the adjustment, even as infrastructure development is getting underway for a national wind-energy network, aims to move a significant percentage of automotive fuel to natural gas, while replacing the non-automotive power generation achieved by use of natural gas to wind energy, which can expand more rapidly than carbon-fuel extraction due to zero necessary refinement and simpler extraction process.

While the plan may go a long way to helping free the United States of its reliance on foreign oil, Pickens’ plan does not necessarily break the addiction to combustible carbon-based fuels, and so does not do enough to cut into damaging carbon emissions. Pushing US development of wind energy will, however, be a watershed moment in the transition to a clean, green economy.