Gone With the Wind

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After spending nearly $60 million relentlessly advertising his modestly named “Pickens Plan” during the last presidential election cycle, former Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens announced earlier this week that he’s abruptly scrapped further work on the ambitious mega-project.

Citing various reasons including not being able to finance the project in today’s credit market, as well as being unable to build the transmission lines needed for what had been touted as the world’s largest wind farm, Pickens nonetheless claimed that his efforts to raise energy awareness in America had “made great progress.”

Indeed. Pickens will now be receiving a vastly increased level of government subsidization from Congress for the natural gas infrastructure part of his “energy independence plan” which, quite unsurprisingly, the multifarious tentacles of his corporate interests all stand to profit handsomely from — with the generous assistance of taxpayers, of course.

An elaborate bait-and-switch scheme, perhaps? Who knows… But whatever the case, it points out the naivety of assuming there are any easy answers or morally “good” solutions when it comes to the issue of developing so-called alternative energy sources within a market-based economy.

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Filed under Energy, Environmental Policy

Tags: Alternative Energy, Natural Gas, Pickens Plan, Wind Power