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Millionaire T. Boone Pickens is planning to turn Texas into the Saudi Arabia of wind, but some question his motive, AdAge reports.
As part of the “Pickens Plan,” Pickens is spending $58 million on an advertising blitz, arguing that America’s $700 billion-a-year-oil habit can be kicked with an expansion of wind power.
The Pickens spots started airing on national cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC and full-page ads ran in USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.
But critics point out that Pickens is pushing wind power at the same time he’s building the biggest wind farm in America on a 400,000-acre land in Texas Panhandle.
The plan lines up nicely with his business interests in Mesa Power, which recently spent $2 billion to purchase 667 General Electric wind turbines.
Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says, “Everything he is outlining in this plan will pad his already ample bank account.”
According to AWEA’s April report, Texas is tops among states in both total and new wind power.
A recent U.S Department of Energy report examined the possibility of harnessing enough wind power to provide up to 20 percent of the nation’s total electricity needs by 2030.
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Comments
Oh PLEASE - I don’t care if the man makes billions - at least it’s clean!!!!! How about using that time/money/energy spent criticizing and do something constructive. Each of us needs to get off our indivudual rear ends and take at least one step in a new direction. Stop griping about what the next guy is doing and start making the world a better place.
Amanda Cravotta July 23rd, 2008Who the heck cares if he can make a (sorry for the bad word) profit? Ya know what, let’s just let only people who have little money do all of the environmental improvements! What’s that you say? They don’t have the money to invest? Then the heck with the environment, we”ll just wait until they get the money. We would not want to help T. Boone get richer, even if it does help us reduce our dependence on oil. I’m sure that the middle east oil producers would agree whole heartedly with that thought process. Anybody got an extra $2 billion I can borrow?
Jeff M July 23rd, 2008Gee. I invested in companies developing renewable energy sources. I expect to make money. Did I do something wrong?
Capitalist Tree Hugger July 23rd, 2008You should be ashamed of your lack of journalistic integrity. In the first THREE months of 2008, ExxonMobil plowed nearly $9 billion into stock buy-backs - to make even fewer even richer. This article uses snipes by the Cato Institute at a mere $2 billion investment in wind power. If you are going to use the bastion of far right economics (or far left) to slam anything - you should at least explain who they are and for whom they work. I support T. Boone’s call for more - we need $200 billion not $2 billion.
Phil Berry July 24th, 2008Why, whenever someone has a business plan, do people question their motives? Does anyone question Toyota’s decision to build hybrid cars? Don’t they do that so they can make money? Is it that we activists are so used to calling corporate america to task that we still question their motives even when they’re doing the right thing? If a well-known environmentalist were promoting in and investing in wind power, would be people be questioning his motives? Can we please just get back to a culture of innovation and reward for risk? We need a solution now and questioning motives is just a bunch of noise that distracts you from being productive.
Lee Solomon July 25th, 2008