Critique the Pickens Plan – Part 1 (Electricity)
Posted by Mike The Highwayman on July 11, 2008
There’s two major issues that the Pickens Plan has in terms of energy policy in the US. The first is with energy production, the first part of his plan. Basically, his idea is to turn the midwest into a giant wind farm. Which is possible, but that won’t do what his second part of his plan requires: freeing up natural gas for transportation. Here’s why:
Solar and wind energy are uncontrollable. The sun shines and the wind blows on their own schedule. Contrary to public belief, the government does not have a weather machine, making it capible of creating clear skies and windy conditions whenever they are needed. So the amount of energy created will not be able to tuned to the needs of the consumers.
There have already been two scenarios where wind has shown their unreliablity:
- The wind blows too much: Wind Power too much of a good thing
- The wind blows too little: Loss of wind causes Texas power emergency
There haven’t been any problems with solar on this issue, but there hasn’t been as much reliablity on solar either. But the fact remains that energy providers cannot sync up wind with demand, causing some serious problems with electricity. An increasing reliance on unstable sources of power will just exacerbate this problem.
There is also the NIMBY problem, which has reared its head in all sorts of places, including Massachussetts, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. These areas are also where natural gas is more likely to be used due to local environmental laws. So you would have to transfer the electricity from the midwest to the northeast to displace natural gas power production. Transmission over more than a 1000 miles will mean more power lost and even higher demands on the system. So putting these wind farms in the midwest won’t be alot of help in getting the power where it will be needed (coincidentally NOT the mid-west).
Luckily for Pickens both of these issues can be resolved. The NIMBYism can be short-circuted, and the energy timing problem can be resolved through storing electricity (although the technology that would be required to do this is VERY far off, as they are having problem with creating batteries for cars, nevermind entire cities).
But this still leaves the problems with attempting to use natural gas in transportation, the second half of Pickens’ Plan.
The Highwayman 
scotty said
There is a Public Discussion Forum For Pickens Energy Plan : http://www.pickensenergyplan.com. It would be great if you participate there.
Dick Epler said
Mike, you’re my kind of guy for several reasons. As avid motorhomers out of the northwest, my wife and I really enjoy getting on the road every year for a jaunt to new places and adventures. We average 6-7 months on the road mostly during from the early fall to the following spring. We have a son in NC and a granddaughter and ggranddaughter in SC. Beautiful part of the country.
I know what you mean by ‘time to think about current events’ while on the road. I also appreciate your ability to cultivate commonsense solutions for a confused world.
I would invite you to research and to think a bit about Lewis Strauss’ (former head of the AEC) rather famous comment about ‘energy too cheap to meter.’ He was, perhaps like you and I, a man of plain words and unfortunately, at that time (mid ’50s), was excoriated by private industry for his comment (where’s the profit?).
But he was a scientist from the can-do generation of the 40s and 50s, and knew that if we made a national commitment, we could achieve such a goal. It’s still possible and I believe that it may finally be time for such a concept to take hold.
Energy is critical to increasing a nation’s quality of life. That’s what Strauss knew. His vision at the time was nuclear power which included breeder reactors (produce more fuel than consumed) and fuel reprocessing … both of which were essentially shut down by Jimmy Carter (a rather naive southern gentleman from your neighboring state to the south).
Today, the concept would include fuel cells (for EVERYTHING) and the hydrogen economy using much of the existing infrastructure for the distribution of liquid fuel and gas.
Generation IV and V nuclear reactors (pre-approved by the NRC) would be used to produce the hydrogen essentially as a by-product of generating electricity for the grid. At some point, however, commercial fuel cells would allow the grid to would become decentralized (already happening with hospitals and some mission-critical enterprises).
Note that ‘energy too cheap to meter’ could easily become a world-wide phenomenon so that there would be little reason for wars and other such mischief from 3rd world regimes. Wealth tends to dilute a nation’s desire to go to war. But it can’t be done without a national commitment, T. Boone Pickens notwithstanding.
Critique of the Pickens Plan - Part 2 (Transportation) « The Highwayman said
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