The Pickens Plan: Still Big Business?

After seeing the new-ish television commercials by T. Boone Pickens a few too many times, I finally went over to pickensplan.com to check out what the guy had to say.

I’ll save you a click and post the video here:

I have to admit that everything the guy says makes sense. So, I had to think for awhile to figure out why it doesn’t completely sit well with me.

I like the idea of utilizing wind power. Where I live in Northern California, there is a windmill farm along Highway 580 at the Altamont pass. They are actually quite beautiful to look at while passing by in the car. I’ve also seen single windmills on private property while riding the train across Germany.

So, T. Boone Pickens points out that the windiest part of the country is a north and south strip between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. That’s ok too. I can see the idea of creating wind farms there. But when he talks about it, it sounds like he wants to heavily populate the area with his windmills that will generate energy for the population on both the east and west parts of the country, all the way to the coasts.

I like the idea of community windmill farms. I’m not so sure I can get behind big business windmill farms. I don’t think it benefits anyone to have large corporations behind our energy system. Large corporations have been behind big oil – and that includes T. Boone Pickens – for the last thirty years that the environmentalists have been trying to change our focus from oil to alternative energies. Only now that T. Boone is running out of a commodity is he looking at alternative energy.

Pickens is moving in the right direction. Should we care about his motives? What do you think about the Pickens’ plan?