Commentary

While discussing a topic have you ever asked yourself, ‘I wonder what so and so would think’ if he were alive today?  It happened to me recently, but I couldn’t recall the name of the “so and so” I was thinking about at the time. 

I can usually count on my wife to come to my rescue, but I was trying to remember a name of an individual that wasn’t in her wheelhouse.

It was T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire oil tycoon. I was surprised his name didn’t surface when I was researching the major problems facing the future of solar and wind – battery storage and transmission.

In 2008, Pickens revealed his $10 billion plan to build the world’s biggest wind farm.  His company, Mesa Power, began buying land and ordering 2,700 turbines expected to eventually generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for about a million homes.

He saw U. S. crude futures at new records above $115 a barrel and saw it as a bright future for sources like wind and solar.  By mid-July 2008, oil peaked at $134 a barrel.

He found you can’t have power without power lines.  The idea of wind was alluring because it was cheap, but developers like Pickens became wary of building farms where there were no transmission lines.

In January of 2009, when oil fell to $31,76 a barrel, it made competitive natural gas-fired plants more attractive than wind.  So, in the end, the transmission problems and cheap oil forced Pickens to scuttle his plan to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

Looking back at the coverage given to Pickens’ plan some 14 years ago, I was struck by the similarity of doubt that hung over wind and solar then and still does  today.

In The Oil Drum, a blog on energy, the author wrote of chasing a storm up the New York Thruway, carrying hail and cutting visibility to yards. “Not a good day for the prime candidates promoted as the sustainable fuels of tomorrow, here in the Northeast.”

We hear the same criticism today.  What about when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?  And some people are beginning to worry about battery power storage and transmission lines.

And as the Biden administration wants Americans to move off fossil fuels and purchase electric cars, we learn of electric cars idled without power on snow-storm clogged Interstate.

With complaints of the price of gasoline at the pumps, the White House is working overtime to blame everyone else for the increase in price.

They forget that candidate Biden is on tape telling CNN’s Dana Bash, “We’re gonna get rid of fossil fuels.” And when asked if there would be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking in the Biden Administration, he responded, “No.”

As recent as the State of the Union address, Biden told us he wanted to prioritize products made in America.  “Folks, when we use taxpayer dollars to rebuild America, we’re going to do it by buying American.  Buy American products. Support American jobs.”

This cannot be done without the use of fossil fuels at prices we have come to know under our energy independence.

Pickens died in 2019 at 91 years of age. 

So, what would he think about where we stand today?  We’ve lost our energy independence and wind and solar are still far from being viable power sources.

Despite his advocacy for renewable energy, he donated to many Republican candidates since the 1980s, and in the 2004 presidential campaign, he helped bankroll television ads by the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” that attacked Democrat candidate John Kerry.

Now, more than ever … may God continue to bless the United States of America.