Pickens To Invest $58 Million In Campaign For Wind Power, $12 Billion In Wind Farm

Oil baron T. Boone Pickens (personal net worth: $2.7bn) is investing $12 billion in a wind farm in west Texas via his company, Mesa Power. True to Texas mythology, the farm, near Pampa, TX, will be the largest in the world when completed. And it will start generating power in three years. (tip)

Newsweek compares the Pickens campaign with that of another Texan, H. Ross Perot in 1992. [Aside: Perot hasn't given up. See PerotCharts.com.] After all, neither oil prices nor imports are headliners for either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain, the presumed D and R presidential candidates. And Congress and the President aren't talking about energy much, either.

Pickens -- who kicked off a $58 million campaign with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal -- thinks spending $700 billion annually on foreign oil -- to import about 70% of the oil we use -- is "dangerous, and it threatens the future of our nation." He has done a complete about face on this topic (if he were a politician, someone would accuse him of flip-flopping) -- in 2005, he pooh-pooed the idea of wind-based energy:

I was in wind energy for a minute ... I hate it. And when I got to looking at those damn things I said, I don't want to be a part of putting that on the horizon. We took a loss and got out of it and I'm glad I did.

But that was then. Today, like many of us, Pickens thinks the nation needs another infrastructure project like Eisenhower's Interstate system -- but this time related to energy. And according to Pickens, the Department of Energy says that we could generate 20% of our electrical supply from wind -- by 2030 -- even though today it's about 1%. He thinks we can -- and must -- do so faster.

One impediment? Congress & the President. From the Dallas Morning News:

The problem is that most Americans, including elected policymakers, continue to live for the moment. The United States hasn't had a coherent energy plan in decades. Countless blue-ribbon commissions have warned of out-of-control deficit spending and soaring entitlement obligations. The nation has unwisely postponed the inevitable day of reckoning, and now it is nearly here.

Pickens is, however, an oil man, and his plan includes converting cars to natural gas -- at least as an interim solution. And skeptics insist that there remains the challenge of moving that wind-generated power from the nation's mid-section to population center. Plus, winds are lightest when electricity demand is high (summer).

According to the UK Independent, a farmer could earn $10,000 a year on a quarter-acre, about 3% of the value of the electricity produced. Conversely, if that quarter-acre were used for corn for ethanol, the net is about $300. There is still a potential impact on food costs, assuming that the land is viable for human- or animal-grade corn production. But food costs are going to rise, even in America where we pay less of our disposable income on food than most of the globe.

I'll give Pickens his due: he studied the issue and changed his mind. He's put his money where his mouth is. And his personal campaign could force Obama and McCain -- and maybe even Congressmen and Senators -- to make energy policy and headliner issue this November.

The Pickens team is using social media technologies to spread the word: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter. There is also a way to volunteer.

Watch his YouTube commercial, and revel in that Texas drawl!

• The 2005 Energy Bill - US Politics @ About.com
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• Lester Brown On The Future of The Environment - Environment @ About.com