The Logics

A topic that caught my interest is the Pickens Plan, a plan that claims to reduce American dependence on foreign oil. During the months that I continued watching for additional information, never did the Pickens Plan actually state what the plan is. Many residents in the Texas panhandle are familiar with Boone Pickens, and many of us are aware of how he and other ranchers paid around $600.00 an acre in lawyer fees to gain riparian water rights along Canadian River land that typically sells for around $200.00 an acre. Sizable gossip exists about the water, oil, and natural gas that Pickens is hoping to sell, and the gossip is naturally suspect of the Pickens Plan to sell and install wind farms throughout the USA.

I do not yet have sufficient information to base a qualified opinion of the Pickens Plan, but the long range logic easily concludes that wind farms are not the answer that wind generator salesmen claim. Wind farms cannot replace power plants (power plants must still exist for when there is no wind), and if the current estimates are reasonably close, that a maximum of about 20% of the nation’s power might be created from wind farms, then the following graphic helps to illustrate the long range costs.

A scenario suggests that if every home in the USA were given a free energy efficient refrigerator that consumes about 300 watt hours daily, and the homes gave minor attention to holistic efficiency, the cost would be about $250 billion, and the energy savings would be similar as to what the wind farms could produce. The estimated costs of installing and maintaining wind farms throughout the USA is about $40 trillion dollars for the 21st century. The graphic shows $400 trillion, an above average inflationary scenario that is not uncommon with government projects. The graphic will be updated when additional information is accumulated. The following numbers are derived from http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp#home_consumption .

305,213,441,417 kwh avg monthly consumption in the USA

61,042,688,283.33 kwh @ 20%

$         5,292,401,074.17 avg cost at .0867 per kwh

$       63,508,812,889.98 cost for 12 months

$  6,350,881,288,998.01 cost for 100 years

$15,877,203,222,495.00 cost with avg inflation of around 5%

$31,754,406,444,990.00 minimally expected price hike for wind power

The Pickens Plan may soon be forced upon USA citizens by some politicians who, not surprisingly, own land near Pickens’, and will gain countless millions of your family’s dollars if a wind farm is installed on their land. It would be far less expensive for every home in the USA to become 100% solar energy independent than for the wind farms to be forced upon the public (and the solar conversions would create many thousands of permanent jobs).

The bottom line remains, as always, that the final solution to all problems is to not have the problem itself. As I answered an EPA agent once, the energy solution is to use less energy by supporting energy saving devices. A home owner can spend about $1,000.00 now for an energy efficient refrigerator, or spend about $50,000.00 later in increased electricity rates. Some politicians, who own land ripe for a wind farm, claim that the higher costs are the better deal.