Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Pickens Plan
A reader pointed our direction to T. Boone Pickens' much ballyhooed new plan to vastly increase our dependence on wind energy and switch largely to natural gas powered vehicles. I like this plan, it makes a lot of sense, and it has potential. What's wrong with it? It ignores nuclear energy, it ignores domestic drilling, and it presupposes that huge tracts of land will be made available to the wind energy producers for their turbines. Putting aside the fact that Pickens has BILLIONS invested in wind energy (he seems to be every liberal's favorite oil tycoon now for his selfless switch to wind....they need to check their facts), thinking along these lines is healthy and required to diversify our energy supply. That said, the supply has to be really diverse, not just diverse enough for T. Boone and his heirs to profit.
The time is long overdue to harness all energy abilities into an energy surety program. Energy security and the economic surety it provides is our number one long term national interest.
ReplyDeleteYES nuclear has the potential to be the backbone and YES it should be; BUT, will the "regulatory" actions ever get through the nuclear quagmire before, at and in congress and the "not in my backyarders"?
Economic motivations notwithstanding, since when did profit ever affect a conservative let alone a conservative wahoo?
We should be establishing solar farms and wind farms as long as they are on land. To establish these farms on the ocean or any body of water is more difficult, more costly to opperate and maintain and more difficult to eventually dismantle.
ReplyDeleteI am all for nuclear power as long as the plants are properly built (not cheap and dirty) and properly operated and maintained (not cheap and dirty). The great problem is what to do with the nuclear waste and what to do with the plant itself when it has outlived it's usefulness.