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Energy plan ads just a bunch of wind?
Commentator Will Wilkinson
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TEXT OF COMMENTARY
Scott Jagow: Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is on a mission. Yesterday, he said he was creating an army of people to lobby for his energy plan. That plan is to move toward wind power and natural gas and away from imported oil. Commentator Will Wilkinson has been studying this, and so far, isn't impressed.
Will Wilkinson: Maybe you've seen T. Boone Pickens' commercial by now. The corporate takeover artist and hedge fund chairman is in the process of building the world's largest wind farm. He's also the nation's largest supplier of transportation-related natural gas.
Imagine Pickens' surprise when he discovered that our environmental and economic salvation is to use subsidized wind power to replace the natural gas we now use to generate electricity, and then to use that freed-up natural gas to power our cars. We could use new wind power to replace dirty coal instead. But that's not the plan.
All commercials are trying to sell us something. But Pickens' ad isn't aimed at us the consumers, but as voters sadly under-informed and easily stirred by appeals to emotion. The Pickens Plan is not about offering you, the consumer, a choice.
If wind power were more efficient than the alternatives, we'd already be using more of it. If natural gas cars were attractive to consumers, we'd already be driving more of them. The Pickens plan is about getting the government to use its powers to tax, regulate, and subsidize -- and pick winners in the energy sector.
When Pickens says:
T. Boone Pickens: Over $700 billion are leaving this country to foreign nations every year.
and adds up to:
Pickens: It'll be the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.
He's leaning hard on our worst nationalist impulses and attacking the very idea of peaceful, mutually beneficial trade. Listening to Pickens, you'd never know we got something for all that money. What he's really saying is: Why buy the things you need from dangerous foreigners when you could be buying them from rock-ribbed Americans, like T. Boone Pickens?
In the end, The Pickens' plan is that government use its powers to make Pickens the winner. Don't help him. The last time Pickens spent millions on political ads, the Swift Boat Veterans offered us, the voters, their version of the truth. How do you like how that turned out?
Jagow: Will Wilkinson is a research fellow at the Cato Institute.
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<blockquote>"If wind power were more efficient than the alternatives, we'd already be using more of it. If natural gas cars were attractive to consumers, we'd already be driving more of them. The Pickens plan is about getting the government to use its powers to tax, regulate, and subsidize -- and pick winners in the energy sector."</blockquote>
You're a fool to make this statement. Like the oil and coal industry hasn't been lobbying the government for DECADES in order to gain subsidies to make them #1. Of course they have! And, despite windfall profits over the last few years, they still get paid subsidies!
Not only that, they don't pay a cent for all the wars that we fight on their behalf to ensure secure/solid distribution. Instead, we the tax payer do through the inflation tax as we attempt to pay off our national debt, as we continue to over print our worthless fiat money.
These articles are so misinformative they make me want to puke!
Call me silly or uninformed, but as members of a capitalist democracy, why are we concerned if anyone has an idea that makes them rich (or richer) My concern is whether or not it is a good idea that works, is achieveable, serves the greater good and makes the US less vulnerable to economic actions and threats from often less than friendly foreign powers. Buy from them, trade with them, be part of international commerece, but let's not be dependant on them.
I am amazed that this made it as a story... slow news day @ Marketplace.
1) Pickens or any other business person that develops renewable energy resources that get us away from oil, coal and nuclear should lobby for change, and dare I say they should profit from their efforts. Remember this is 'marketplace' not 'non-for-profit place'. Besides even if there is another 100 or 200-year supply of oil do we need to burn every last drop in internal combustion engines. Remember folks we all use plastic and other petrochemicals every day let's save the dinosaur juice for sexier things than just tail pipe emissions.
2) Wilkinson proves that education doesn't equal intelligence with his comment "If wind power were more efficient than the alternatives, we'd already be using more of it." because any intelligent person knows that we don't 'use more' renewable energy sources because they have yet to be commercialized. Logic tells us that renewables have yet to be commercialized because gas and oil have been cheap (so far). So cheap that our culture actually thinks it is ok to burn it rather then work a bit harder towards sustainability.
3) Lastly Will's concern about government picking winners in the energy sector is a touching in its naïveté, they have already picked winners and it is oil, coal and corn based ethanol. I’m ready for a new winner will and it will be renewable energy like it or not.
Notice that I use the term renewable rather then alternative energy. When will alternative be mainstream? I argue the time is now change the status quo and please stop calling it alternative energy.
Check out Marketplace's Greenwash Brigade's coverage of Pickens' plan at http://www.publicradio.org/columns/sustainability/greenwash/2008/07/an_o...
I applaud Will Wilkinson for his critique of Boone Pickens Energy plan. Nowhere did I hear Mr. Wilkinson say Picken's plan have no merits. Mr. Pickens may be on to something, nevertheless, it never hurts to hear the other side of the story. And as we should all know, Mr. Pickens will have no problems if truth and the greater good are victims of his plans. Thank you Mr. Wilkinson
The idea that market forces really drive the available supply of things to buy, at least with big ticket items like cars, is just laughable. I would say it's true with items produced on smaller scales in industries with more competition. It's just a fact that large industry is resistant to making sweeping change, no matter how necessary that change is. Why is that you Cato institute guys talk about "free markets" in the abstract and never address the realities of economics.
Are you INSANE AND/OR RETARDED? World oil production is peaking and you suggest that weaning ourselves from oil and moving to renewable energy is a ploy by selfish billionaires? WTF is the matter with you?
We are increasing our national deficit spending by almost $1 trillion dollars per year now, mainly because we import so much oil at ever higher prices. And you dismiss this as beneficial global trade?? Do you realize what an incredibly negative impact this is having on our national finances, the value of the dollar, and our economy?
Let me simplify it for you. Renewable energy == GOOD. Continued heavy dependence on waning oil supplies == BAD. Increasing US federal borrowing and deficit spending by $1 trillion per year == VERY, VERY BAD and COMPLETELY UNSUSTAINABLE.
Are you INSANE AND/OR RETARDED? World oil production is peaking and you suggest that weaning ourselves from oil and moving to renewable energy is a ploy by selfish billionaires? WTF is the matter with you?
We are increasing our national deficit spending by almost $1 trillion dollars per year now, mainly because we import so much oil at ever higher prices. And you dismiss this as beneficial global trade?? Do you realize what an incredibly negative impact this is having on our national finances, the value of the dollar, and our economy?
Let me simplify it for you. Renewable energy == GOOD. Continued heavy dependence on waning oil supplies == BAD. Increasing US federal borrowing and deficit spending by $1 trillion per year == VERY, VERY BAD and COMPLETELY UNSUSTAINABLE.
'If wind power were more efficient than the alternatives, we'd already be using more of it. If natural gas cars were attractive to consumers, we'd already be driving more of them.' Whaaaa???!! Since when is the present administration, including Congress, offering alternatives? As long as the tip-top government guys are oil tycoons themselves, we'll not see sound environmental policy. As long as Congress waffles, we the little people pay more for much less. I'm hoping for the best for November, but come on, guys. To imply that we even have options at this point for less reliance on foreign oil is misleading. The government will see to it that we're socked in. Only when we the public smarten up and start protesting in a big way will there be any progress. For the foreseeable future, I'll be working my three jobs.
Pickens obviously has a self-interest here, but so does the oil, auto, utility and financial industries. He at least is proposing an alternative to a status quo that is failing. When the consumer really does have a choice, then change will occur. Will Wilkinson is mistaken that this happens by itself through the efficiencies of a free market. Like it or not, government often does have to pick and nurture technologies through sponsoring research, subsidies, and regulations. For example, advances in automotive safety, emissions, and mileage all happened as a result of government mandate. In NJ, we still get most electricity from coal and nuclear, but we now have the choice to buy a percentage from alternative providers.
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