Billionaire T. Boone Picken's campaign for government subsidies forwindpower, advertised in a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal seems erroneous in several respects.

Pickens Plan Bad Policy

First, our reliance on imported oil is not a "crisis" unless we allow it to become one. There are cheaper more effective supplies of alternative energy already available, and the high prices we currently are paying would bring those supplies and technology to consumers were it not for anti-energy policies preventing implementation and use of today's alternative resources. Those policies ought to be changed, rather than executing this elaborate and expensive build-around. Pickens plan is just another big business that seeks to grow his fortunes at the expense of private landowners. His plan includes the use of eminent domain powers to legally steal property from consumers, and then uses taxpayer dollars to build and maintain the wind turbines.

Second, we do not need a single "plan" to transition from oil to some other fuel or fuels. We need to allow millions, even billions, of consumers producers to make their own plans, and the transition will occur naturally. As suggested in the Environment & Climate News, Pickens should find a copy of Friedrich Hayek's classic essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society." and apply it to the current situation.

Pickens Plan Poor Option

Pickens plan calls for taxpayers to make massive investments in wind power, (which on a large massive scale, can't compete with other forms of alternative energy such assolar power) and power lines (because the wind often blows most in areas where people don't want to live and work), in order to free up natural gas currently being used to generate electricity (much of that in new facilities built and being built to comply with the Clean Air standards, which I guess he thinks we should just discard), which can then be used to fuel cars and trucks (increasing the cost per vehicle by $3,500 to $6,000 and reducing a vehicle's range per tank of fuel by as much as 50 percent, and posing new safety issues), all to reduce our reliance on oil.
A better plan would be to take the money Pickens Plan would call for and give it to consumers to implement their own energy producing system.

Better Alternatives

Maybe it's just me, but why not build clean burning coal plants, or producing better and more efficient power transmission lines, (thereby increasing electricity output and reducing the amount of energy needed to produce the electricity),instead of windmills? Clean burning coal plants can be built at a fraction of the cost on a fraction of the land. And solar energy can be implemented with nearly zero environmental impact, and by upgrading our current power lines to be more efficient, can all be done at a fraction of the cost and without invoking eminent domain to steal peoples property and kick people off their land.

If people had their own off grid energy producing systems, we could then plug in our hybrid cars at night and cut our gasoline consumption by 70 percent or more, without running natural gas lines to every gas station and turning our cars and trucks into mobile bombs!

It just seems simpler. By now, everyone knows the limitations of windmills for use in massive nation wide use. Vast areas of land would have to be covered with windmills, we'd have to rely on the efficiency and competence of government employee's to maintain and repair the windmills only to generate a very small fraction of our energy. Not to mention, the government would have to create yet another government agency, filled with government employee's recieving government benefits (paid for with taxpayer dollars) adding to the already fragil financial economy.

Under Pickens plan, intermittency would still be a major problem, so we would still need conventional plants to provide base-load capacity for "spinning reserves." 

Subsidy Hound

The real reason behind his scheme is very simple. Pickens is looking for subsidies and eminent domain to run the new transmission lines and build windmills on private land, subsidies to build new power lines, and production subsidies to windmill farms operated by big business or the government.

Taking the message to the people is one thing. Sticking them with the bill is another. And that's one potential hitch to his grand plan: While he's cracking the whip on politicians to change U.S. energy policy, he has to figure out how to crack the chicken-and-egg connundrum that stands in his way.

Wind power needs hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in new transmission networks to make it a big contributor to the U.S. electricity mix; today it provides just over 1% of power in the U.S. And converting any sizeable portion of the U.S. vehicle fleet to run on natural gas also requires a hefty investment in new transportation infrastructure, like natural gas filling stations.
No matter how you slice it, somebody's got to foot the bill for Mr. Pickens grand plan to happen.

Adam Smith warned us more than two centuries ago, in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," to look out for "the man of system," who "is apt to be very wise in his own conceit" and imagines he can "arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chessboard.

Sorry Mr. Pickens. Americans are tired of being used as pawns by the greedy, wealthy, powerful, influencial, lobbiest, big business, Wall Street CEO"s, banking CEO's and the incompetent, corrupt government officials. We Americans are not chess pieces, and America is not your chessboard!