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T. Boone Pickens’ green windpower and water plan is a windy boondoggle

Posted August 25, 2008

Pickens’ recent environmental conversion is a perfect example. He has been buying water rights from the Ogallala Aquifer in the hopes of pipelining water to Dallas — which would provide him with a major windfall.

by Zonia Pino, Phoenixville News

Baltimore — (TFN): T. Boone Pickens is a smart businessman. In fact, he’s a genius at it. In a world where the manufacturers of “green” this and “Earth-friendly” that are rolling in, um, er — green — Pickens has found a way to make the millions spent on jute supermarket bags look like chump change. The state of Texas’ investment of $4.9 billion in wind technology is going to make wind farmers such as Pickens even wealthier.

Alas, Pickens’ good fortune overshadows the misfortune of Texas taxpayers who will have to pay for this losing endeavor.

Like many states trying to cope with high energy prices, Texas is banking on wind as the next “big thing.” Unfortunately, wind has a poor history as an energy source.

For starters, wind power is very unreliable. The turbines that produce the electricity work only when the wind is blowing within a specific, narrow range of speed. In its downtime, the system has to revert to conventional power sources, and the switching between wind and conventional power requires an even greater output of energy just to make the conversion… Finish reading this excellent article here!

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