Boone Pickens Retreats on Wind Power

Remember Boone Pickens plans to cover the United States with windmills and lead all of us into the brave new world of renewable energy? Well, never mind.

From Fox:

Boone Pickens no longer plans to build the world’s largest wind farm, a spokesman for the Texas billionaire told the Dallas Morning News. Pickens had already delayed some of his plans. Now he said he instead plans to build five or six smaller wind farms in the Midwest and possibly Texas. Hurdles faces by Pickens included lower natural gas prices, which made power from wind less desireable, plus a lack of transmissions lines. “It was a little more complicated than we thought,” Pickens told the newspaper.

I’ll resist the temptation to get all preachy on this. Let’s just note that this probably won’t be the last green project that after all sorts of bluster fades away and wouldn’t it be nice if our politicians recognized that these things are a “little more complicated” than they think.

Comments

[Zenfar:]

I still like solar and natural gas for big rigs. Never liked wind, no chance of Moore's law like magic like there is in solar.

Long most US Solar, STP, and CLNE

Jul 07 04:20 PM

[manthrax3:]

I like whatever's cheapest and most efficient after pricing in all externalities (likely to be coal).

Jul 07 04:49 PM

[J. Crighton:]

I never really liked wind, bit of an eyesore, wind doesn't always blow, still tends to blender birds (though there have been great improvements on that one).

Solar is getting better in the large plant sense (just doen't try to price out putting solar panels on the house its still cost prohibitive).

Jul 07 05:28 PM

[bigmoney:]

its' hard to believe that an elite like T Boone Pickens deployed massive amounts of capital into the tech before learning that the power grid was inadequate.

Jul 08 12:38 AM

[the hand:]

it does not seem he has abandoned the plan, just relocated assets. actual site plans are a pittance of total investment.

i do not like any form of energy which its delivery is independent of demand. it just means we have to build conventionally as well.

we need to concentrate on storage of energy so that wind power will be effective.

Jul 08 01:34 AM

[Ferdinand E...:]

Good note, Tom. It's about time that the television audience should find out that wind cannot do all the things that the wind enthusiasts (and invostors) think that it can.

Jul 08 10:12 AM

[Longinvestor:]

"Boone Pickens no longer plans to build the world’s largest wind farm...".
Now each city can have its own clean energy wind farm and/or solar farm just on the city outskirts. 24/7 energy availability and storage is by using on-site water electrolysis generated hydrogen and fuel cells. See MIT's patents.

Jul 08 10:25 AM

[jmmx:]

I like that you express a desire to include all externalities in the equation for the cost. Nt many people want to do that.

The problem is, it is an impossible task since so many are unknowable. The biggest one of course is AGW. No one can predict exactly or conclusively what this will be. However! IF those who believe that AGW is real and we should approach the scenarios suggested by the latest MIT study (for example) then for coal, these externalized costs (meaning costs that the producer pushes onto the public) would be staggering. Unfortunately, we will never know what this is until it is too late.


On Jul 07 04:49 PM manthrax3 wrote:

> I like whatever's cheapest and most efficient after pricing in all
> externalities (likely to be coal).

Jul 08 10:30 AM

[jmmx:]

oops - intended to say:

IF those who believe that AGW is real ARE CORRECT and we...

Jul 08 10:33 AM

[La Marque:]

Government grid operators move slower than molasses. Texas is spending $4.9B on grid improvements so that more windmills can be hooked into the system. It just can't be done fast enough. Texas already has the most windmills in operation.

Jul 08 10:38 AM

[Teutonic Kn...:]

From the onset I have had the feeling that this T Boone project is hype and bound to doom. Why? First of, too much hype. You saw pages and pages of full-page paid ads in the newspaper and magazines preaching the vibrant virtues of this "thing".

Now my old-fashion German head told me that if it is indeed such a great idea and an initiative, it doesn't really have to sell itself soooo-o----o hard. In other words, if in a reasonable time span the consumers could just hop in and actually be able to buy wind power energy, even at some differential premium, it will all but sell itself and take off.

But, where? All that was just noise. T Boone Pickens is a bunch of crap.

Jul 08 11:17 AM

[searcher:]

I'll leave 'global' or 'national' or 'regional' energy production and storage and transmission solutions as investment theses to the visionaries. Most likely all modes will be in play as local solutions where relevant.

Jul 08 02:11 PM

[one eye:]

Teotonic: It was Hype but it wasn't all Hype. He spent about $10 million but if he could have gotten Congressional funding for the Transmission lines, it would have been a miniscule investment.

Wind Power is a feasible alternative, the Problem for Land based Farms is the distance to the Grid and the variable nature of the generation. He couldn't get the funding for the lines from the massive Corridor he wanted to build. Mini-farms with closer proximity will work, but won't address the Variable nature.

Storage? Maybe something along the lines of heating molten Salt or whatever will work.

Jul 08 02:21 PM

[Teutonic Kn...:]

one eye -

Thanks for this feedback., sincerely appreciated.

Well, in retrospect, if not done already, I thought he could have had a better chance of convincing Congress if indeed he had presented his case with the needed transmission line funding along with a business case analysis (BCA) and feasibility analysis to the American people. Not the whole technical thing but the gist of it.

TK

On Jul 08 02:21 PM one eye wrote:

> Teotonic: It was Hype but it wasn't all Hype. He spent about $10
> million but if he could have gotten Congressional funding for the
> Transmission lines, it would have been a miniscule investment.<br/>
>
> Wind Power is a feasible alternative, the Problem for Land based
> Farms is the distance to the Grid and the variable nature of the
> generation. He couldn't get the funding for the lines from the massive
> Corridor he wanted to build. Mini-farms with closer proximity will
> work, but won't address the Variable nature.
>
> Storage? Maybe something along the lines of heating molten Salt or
> whatever will work.

Jul 08 02:43 PM

[rajsekar:]

Pickens has a basic credibility issue. Why is Congress listening to Pickens and his plans? It's a well known fact that US is dependent on foreign oil for many years now and Pickens thinks that Congress realized it just last year. Picken's lean towards Natural Gas is surprising and I don't think our automotive or industrial sector is geared towards using Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Countries like India, China and Singapore have invested money to run fleet vehicles using CNG, while US is lagging behind on usage of CNG. Storage of natural gas is a tricky issue unlike oil. Pickens is dead wrong on his plan. I wouldn't trust anything that Pickens talks. I wish some billionaire swift boats Pickens for his Natural Gas strategy and flip-flopping. Boone's wind plan is "Gone with the Wind". So what's next up in Boone's sleeve?

Jul 08 05:46 PM

[rooferguy:]

So it's too expensive and time consuming to build transmission lines and distribution infrastructure.

Duh.

That's why distributed generation solar -- panels on the rooftops of buildings that need the power -- is inherently more cost effective. Yes, it costs a bit more (but not that much more) to put a 10 kw system on a roof instead of a 5 mw system in the desert, but there is ZERO transmission and distribution cost needed. There are also virtually ZERO line losses since you don't need to move the power.

Too bad T-bone listened to the utility industry hype about centralized power generation. Sort of reminds me of what happened to the mainframe and mini- computer industry when PCs took off. Anyone remember Univac, DEC or Data General?

Jul 08 09:43 PM