A Wind Power Boonedoggle

[joshcryer]

After 30 months, countless TV appearances, and $80 million spent on an extravagant PR campaign, T. Boone Pickens has finally admitted the obvious: The wind energy business isn't a very good one.

The Dallas-based entrepreneur, who has relentlessly promoted his "Pickens Plan" since July 4, 2008, announced earlier this month that he's abandoning the wind business to focus on natural gas.

Two years ago, natural gas prices were spiking and Mr. Pickens figured they'd stay high. He placed a $2 billion order for wind turbines with General Electric. Shortly afterward, he began selling the Pickens Plan. The United States, he claimed, is "the Saudi Arabia of wind," and wind energy is an essential part of the cure for the curse of imported oil.

Voters and politicians embraced the folksy billionaire's plan. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he had joined "the Pickens church," and Al Gore said he wished that more business leaders would emulate Mr. Pickens and be willing to "throw themselves into the fight for the future of our country."

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704368004576027310664695834-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwMTEyNDEyWj.html

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Much more at link. What's notable is that the subsidies that natural gas gets aren't really counted in the economics because natural gas avoids the externalized costs because it has exemptions from the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, along with a long list of other environmental exemptions. Natural gas is costing the environment boatloads, and probably isn't economical if its technologies must deal with the environmental acts we created to, uh, protect the environment and the people in it.