OpEd Contributor
Pickens plan is hot air that may burn America
By: Deneed Borelli, OpEd Contributor
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March 26, 2009
Gas prices have fallen precipitously since last summer, but winter was cold and expensive.
According to the Energy Information Administration, expenditures on heating oil and propane fell, but the average household will still spend $987 on heat by spring.
Specifically, projected costs are $870 for those heating with natural gas (up 1.4 percent over last year); $1606 for heating oil (down 17.8 percent); $1,586 for propane (down 5.6 percent) and $932 for electric heating systems (an 8.3 percent increase).
Radical environmentalists with the ear of Washington’s new one-party political leadership oppose new domestic oil, natural gas and coal exploration and constructing new nuclear power plants.
Nothing but “alternative” energy seems acceptable. One of the most prominent alternatives is the “Pickens Plan,” trumpeted by Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens. Pickens is once again plastering the airwaves with commercials, claiming his plan will reduce American dependence on foreign oil by harnessing the wind.
There’s nothing wrong with developing alternative energy, but keep in mind the old saying: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
While backing off on switching personal vehicles to natural gas, Pickens still wants trucks and other fleet vehicles reconfigured. The Pickens Plan could also cost Americans dearly while compromising property rights in a potential repeat of a bitter and violent chapter of the civil rights era.
In the end, Pickens may be the only one happy.
Converting vehicles to natural gas taps a resource now used by power plants to generate electricity. To compensate, the Pickens Plan suggests massive wind turbines. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 100,000 such turbines — many the size of 40-story buildings — are necessary to handle just 20 percent of the nation’s electricity needs.
To deliver that power, the Energy Department further estimates 12,650 miles of new transmission lines are needed by 2030 at a cost of between $64 and $128 billion.
Some people may wind farms on their land to reap energy–production royalties. Not Pickens. He told Fast Company magazine wind turbines are “ugly.” Non-billionaires may have no choice, as the government may use its eminent domain authority to force landowners to accept them.
Pickens compares the proposed new power grid to the construction of the 46,000-mile interstate highway system decades ago. Sadly, back then it was often the poorest neighborhoods selected for eminent domain evictions to make way for new roads.
So-called “negro removal” in Detroit’s Paradise Valley and Newark’s Central Ward helped spark the July 1967 riots that collectively led to 66 deaths. Highway construction destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in a process the San Francisco Chronicle in 1959 called “a crime that cannot be prettied up.”
Pickens has not assured the public his plan would not repeat this exploitation of minorities and the politically-disadvantaged.
Pickens would also likely profit from his plan, thanks to taxpayer support. He testified before Congress that his plan might succeed only with the wind energy Production Tax Credit (PTC), which was recently extended by the $787 billion bailout bill.
Mesa Power, a Pickens’ company, wants to build a 2,700-turbine wind farm in Texas. According to a report by the National Center for Public Policy Research, “Pickens’ firm stands to receive between $1.66 billion and about $3 billion in PTC payments alone over 10 years, a significant portion of its original investment.”
At the moment, Mesa’s plan is stagnant largely due to lower gas prices. But President Barack Obama is embracing a “cap-and-trade” energy policy that eschews fossil fuels. So, there may be life in the Pickens Plan yet.
Obama’s leadership will soon be tested. Will he side with the little guy, protecting their homes and guarding their access to affordable energy? Or will he deliver for special interests like T. Boone Pickens and anti-energy environmental organizations?
If he chooses the latter, it won’t be the change so many people thought they voted for last November.
Deneen Borelli is a fellow with the Project 21 black leadership network of the National Center for Public Policy Research.
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