T Boone Pickens: "Make Me Richer!!"

Having purchased about a zillion dollars worth of airtime for commercials, T Boone Pickens' face and voice are becoming familiar.

But that down-home Texas-good-ol'-boy act shouldn't fool you.

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has flooded the airwaves with irritating ads, repeating the mindless Democrat talking point that "we can't drill our way out" of our energy problems and calling on the government to spend massive amounts of money literally tilting at windmills, as if it were even remotely possible that they could replace fossil fuels

There are two problems with windmills. First, there is (currently) no way to move the electricity from West Texas to either coast--or for that matter, to damn near anyplace else. THAT'S why he's pressuring you to pressure D.C. to put up the transmission lines.

Second problem: wind-power, by its nature, is fickle. Conventional power is NOT fickle. And since the country expects and uses 24x7 power at ~120 volts, "fickle" is not acceptable. The obvious: store the power in batteries and release it when needed.

Not so easy. See, there are no, zero, zip, nada, batteries nearly equal to the task. Not even close.

Back to the Good Ol' Boy:

Billionaire Pickens' pocketbook could benefit from a sizable public investment in a nationwide transmission network he proposes for wind power. His Mesa Power has invested $2 billion in a wind farm in the Texas panhandle northeast of Amarillo. The record purchase of 685 turbines from General Electric Co. produces enough electricity to power 300,000 U.S. homes. Pickens has plans to spend $10 billion by 2011 on capacity roughly equal to four modern nuclear plants.

The electricity will make its way to Dallas or San Antonio along the route of another project, a water pipeline. Pickens' Mesa Water owns the right to draw 65 billion gallons a year from beneath Texas scrubland and move it, alongside his wind-produced power, some 250 miles toward north-central Texas.

And Pickens' argument that wind should replace natural gas as a source of 22 percent of the nation's electricity dovetails with his Clean Fuel Technologies, the largest operator of natural gas fueling stations for vehicles.

Another thing that Pickens doesn't mention: the tax credits he harvests with his "wind-power" scheme...

And you thought the only tax gimmicks were for Big Oil!!

HT: Moonbattery