Pickens' Wind Plan Loses Support as Oil Prices Fall

T. Boone Pickens and tree-hugging environmentalists make quite an odd couple. The man who says he has lost his fortune three times over is betting on wind power as the next big thing in energy. But the constituency most likely to support his efforts -- liberal-leaning Democrats -- often distrust his former career and politics.

Pickens is, after all, an 80-year-old former oilman, who the Washington Post's Dana Milbank says lost over $2 billion dollars last year after betting oil prices would continue to rise when they actually sunk to new lows. In the past, he was a supporter of the infamous Swift Boat attack against Sen. John Kerry and voted for Sen. John McCain in the last presidential election. When HBO's Bill Maher pointedly asked Pickens last week how he could justify his new-found support for clean energy when he previously supported candidates with a background in oil and coal, he brushed off the question by saying he wasn't a politician and said he did not support McCain's candidacy except as Maher said, "in the voting booth."

The "Pickens Plan" has taken its lumps of late, including the easily defeated Proposition 10 in California, which touted clean energy and tax credits for the purchase of hybrid vehicles. Detractors pointed out that Pickens had more than skin in the fight and may have financially benefited by its passage. The lack of investors and public policies in favor of his plan also hurt his efforts. Last fall, the Wall Street Journal reported that at least 50 percent of Pickens' investors had dropped out because of falling oil prices and the realization that the economy was entering a severe downturn. With oil prices currently in the low-to-mid $40-per-barrel range, it is no wonder the perpetually positive Pickens is bullish on oil prices rising. Reuters reported last week that Pickens predicts the price tag for a barrel of crude to rise to $75 by the end of the year.

Last October, Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited the Commonwealth Club also touting alternative methods of reducing the cost of oil on America's treasury. Read the post here and watch the speech here.

Therein lies the twin ironies of the Pickens Plan, where the acceptance and transition to clean energies such as wind and natural gas are predicated on oil men with an eye on oil futures along with the support of Americans most likely to consume less "Texas Tea."

You'll have an opportunity to find out for yourself what this enigmatic and controversial businessman believes. T. Boone Pickens will discuss his plan to build the world's largest wind farm and how America can begin to limit its addiction to foreign oil next Wednesday, March 25 at the Commonwealth Club. Click here for more information.

Ambitious energy plans lose momentum as oil prices drop

Al Gore has a plan for the nation’s energy crisis. Reformed oil man T. Boone Pickens has one, in addition, to his devious plan to win Oklahoma State a national championship, and Google even has designs on reforming the way we procure and consume energy.

Each plan features nuanced methods focusing on biofuels, solar and wind energy along with natural gas.

The similarities? How about a whole lot of money.

Speaking at the Commonwealth Club earlier this month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt (pictured above) said the total price tag of focusing the country’s attention to alternative fuels could run between $4-5 trillion over the next 22 years.

Schmidt said the overall savings from weening the U.S. off oil could be as much as $5 trillion.

“Cheaper to fix global warming than to ignore it,” he said.

Google’s philanthropic interests unabashedly intersects its desire for profits.

“Why is Google doing this?” Schmidt asked Commonwealth Club members, “Well, it is important to our business. We are a large consumer of electricity and we’re likely to be consuming more, and we want the prices to go down.”

A A New York Times piece Oct. 28 by Miguel Helft shows Google’s thirst for energy to be a sensitive topic.

Google has gone to great lengths to conceal how much electricity it uses in its data centers. For example, Google agreed to build a $600 million data center in Oklahoma only after the state legislature passed a law exempting public utilities from disclosing the energy use of their largest customers. Google has also vowed to be carbon neutral, but unlike its rival Yahoo, for example, it has refused to reveal its overall carbon emissions.

The Times story goes on to say that Google sees the disclosure of its energy consumption as a breach of its competitive advantage.

Billionaire oilman-turned-wind-prospector T. Boone Pickens, like Schmidt, sees alternative energy as a business opportunity and an ideological endeavor second.

At Pickens' website, he makes clear his belief that through erecting wind farms in desolate, yet windy Midwestern states and focusing on cleaner energy, oil consumption can be pared down by a third within 10 years. Pickens' plan also touts the ability to bring jobs to poor, rural areas.

David Morris at AlterNet, though, believes the financial crisis and legislation favoring electric vehicles may hamper Pickens' plan.

While Gore's plan may ultimately have the largest price tag at $5 trillion over 10 years, it may also come the closest of the three initiatives in forcing Americans to take their medicine rather than being sold a bill of exotic goods.

Jason Pethokoukis at the U.S. News & World Report money blog, Capital Commerce, believes the plan is pie in the sky, though. 

"Gore's fantastic—in the truest sense of the word—proposal is almost unfathomably pricey and makes sense only if you think that not doing so almost immediately would result in an uninhabitable planet," Pethokoukis wrote in July.

The plan calls for a wholesale change in how American consumes energy. It calls for transforming the U.S. into a renewable energy juggernaut by focusing efforts to produce 100 percent of the nation's power from wind, solar, and geothermal energy.

While Schmidt and Pickens put profitability over responsibility and Gore speaks in apocalyptic tones, the final arbiter of any energy plans will be the American people.

In just a few months, high energy costs went from a sensitive campaign topic to a fairly tame talking point.

When Pickens unveiled his proposal in July crude oil prices hit a record-high of $147. The cost of a barrel of oil today? $67.

Pack up the station wagon, Clark, the family's driving to Walley World.