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T. Boone Pickens Scraps Plan for Massive Wind Farm
T. Boone Pickens' $10 billion plan to build the world's largest wind farm on the Texas panhandle has been scrapped. The high-profile project had benefited from the "Pickens Plan" media blitz in the lead-up to the 2008 elections, when the oil tycoon spent millions on TV ads promoting natural gas and wind power.
Though Pickens was lauded in the media at the time as an environmental hero, I was among a few reporters who questioned his motivation for building the wind project. His early plans would have used a right-of-way for the windmills' power lines to bring water from the Ogallala aquifer to cities downstate, draining a vast region of a fragile reserve. Pickens ultimately failed to find a buyer for the water, then faced a drop in energy prices due to the recession. In December, his Mesa Power LP put the wind project on hold before announcing last week that it would abandon it in favor of several smaller projects.
In making the announcement, Pickens cryptically cited problems associated with building his own power lines. It's odd that he can't tap those already being built to the Panhandle by the Texas Public Utility Commission. The Dallas Morning News reported that the lines "won't follow a path that Mesa had suggested" but didn't elaborate. Did Pickens' power lines fail because they needed the accompanying water pipeline to be profitable? A spokeswoman for Pickens didn't return a call.
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Ripe for the Pickens
Has legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens really gone green?
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Pickens Plan Quietly Falters
So much for the vaunted Pickens Plan. Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens' massively publicized scheme to build a $10 billion wind farm in West Texas has discreetly been put on hold. Pickens cites the difficulty securing financing during the credit crisis, but has also told reporters that energy prices would have to rise again before the project becomes economically viable. This underscores the...
Reality Check On "350 Or Bust"
Josh: This worst case scenario illustrates one of the most incredible problems we have with trying to save the planet, when even T. Boone Pickens fails then we know we are in even greater grave danger of failing to control atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution than we thought we were.
The most disturbing fact of life, literally, is that if we implement all the Sokolow-Pacala Stabilization Wedges as fast as we are currently able to do we are so far beyond failing to meet Bill McKibben's "350 Or Bust" goal that only massive building of nuclear power plants, along with desalination along coasts, will allow us to even begin to guarantee an acceptable climate for Gens X, Y, Z+
climate bill
re: climate kludge:
lobbying, lobbying, lobbying...will we ever learn? i invite you to look at a lobbyist, or limbaugh himself, in a swimsuit. is this the sum of our ideals?
if we persist in believing in greedball ideas, (watt's up with that?!!), we're done. if we let debt-mongers rule our societies with social austerity measures, land-use catastophes, and the 24h/365d work year..(these 3 things are related!)...our oh so self-exalted species will suffer unimaginably and will go extinct within a century, bringing down much the biosphere with it.
our problems are physical. between the physical world and us, there is no separation. any success in overcoming these problems will be measured both physically and physiologically, immune to twisted rhetoric.
fortunately for now, we have some time. i challenge us to marshal sufficient intelligence, courage, and wisdom.
Exponential curve of CO2 atmospheric pollution just gets steeper
Well said Anonymous on July 9, 2009 - 3:12pm: "fortunately for now, we have some time. i challenge us to marshal sufficient intelligence, courage, and wisdom."
Unfortunately, as recently as yesterday U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sharply rebuked G-8 leaders meeting in L’Aquila Italy for failing to make more commitments to reducing climate change in the near term concluding "The policies that they have stated so far are not enough, not sufficient enough."
So the exponential curve for CO2 emissions polluting the atmosphere continues to get steeper.