[whmatthews]

http://link.brightcove.com/services/pla ... 1653634930

[Sly Fox]

T.Boone Pickens makes his debut performance on FlameFans. I didn't see that one coming but thanks.

[SumItUp]

Listening to Mr. Pickens promote wind energy is eerily similar to Algore's promotion of carbon credits. Both agendas are self-serving and will personally line their pockets at the expense of the taxpayer. Wind is part of the entire energy equation, but is not ready for the primetime.

[AZjonz]

He's been an ol' man all his life.

I hope he makes $20 billion doing whatever it is he plans on doing. Though the Texas utility system is already in the works by creating the mother of all windfarms capable of producing 18.5k MW of energy. To put it in perspective, on a hot day a population of 1 million people will consume 2k MW of energy during peak day consumption. That's a lot of cheap power folks. Texas also has to build about $5 billion of transmission lines. All they have to do is get by the Environmentalist and every suburbanite who thought it was a good idea until they find out a 500kv line is going right over their heads.

I hope nuke power gets some momentum, because you can plug a nuke plant right into the infrastructure and produce the cheapest power available (hydro may be cheaper).

[4everfsu]

All this talk is a bunch of hot air

[LUconn]

as soon as I saw this title, I rolled my eyes and thought "I bet this has something to do with T Boone Pickens".

[ALUmnus]

windfarms capable of producing

That's the key phrase. They will never produce that much energy, and probably 70% of the time produce absolutely no energy. Which means what? Traditional power backup, constantly running to pick up the slack. Sure, it has it's place, but wind power is such a small part of the equation that this money is not being well spent.

I wonder how many nuclear power plants could be built for that money?

[AZjonz]

windfarms capable of producing

That's the key phrase. They will never produce that much energy, and probably 70% of the time produce absolutely no energy. Which means what? Traditional power backup, constantly running to pick up the slack. Sure, it has it's place, but wind power is such a small part of the equation that this money is not being well spent.

I wonder how many nuclear power plants could be built for that money?

As long as Oklahoma keeps sucking Texas shouldn't have a wind problem.

The rest of your post I agree with, it is unreliable and should only be part of the equation.

Your last question is a really good and pragmatic one. I believe the answer would be 6 nuke plants could be built instead. With the new technology in power plants, those 6 could at a minimum generate the 18000 MWs the wind farm is said to generate. And it would be available all the time.