Wind Power Plan Is More Than Hot Air

The Pickens Plan is not a panacea for U.S. energy woes, but it will spur lawmakers to rev up the U.S. wind power industry.

By Jim Ostroff, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter

August 19, 2008

Can wind power provide 20% of the U.S.' electric power needs by 2030? Texas oilman and billionaire T. Boone Pickens thinks so. He wants to displace millions of tons of coal used to produce electricity, slashing emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that's been fingered as a cause of warming global temperatures.

And he's right -- or nearly so. But it will take a lot more than mega investments by him and other deep-pocketed investors to get there. The $2 billion that Pickens' Mesa Power is investing in Texas wind farms and transmission lines will help bring more electricity to the state. But sparking the mammoth national build out of wind power needed to take it from providing 1% of U.S. electricity needs now to 20% will take about $1 trillion over the next 25 years. It means installing acres of wind turbines across many Midwestern and Plains states and thousands of miles of new transmission lines.

What's more, utility companies and investors will need more assurance from governments -- state, local and federal -- that obstacles stymieing transmission line construction will come down before they make the needed financial commitments. "The big driver will have to be policies that encourage investments in wind generation systems and break down barriers" to the construction of lines to transmit the electricity from remote areas to cities, says Walter Nasdeo, research director with Ardour Capital Investments. In our judgment, the needed policy changes will fall into place, although the process may take several years.

The audacious Pickens Plan will help. It will get lawmakers' attention when they focus next year on legislation aimed at improving the nation's energy self-sufficiency and putting the U.S. on a path to cut greenhouse gas emissions 50% or so by mid-century. Odds are new laws will extend the current federal tax credit for installation of wind and other renewable energy systems for at least five years, ending the series of cliff-hangers seen over the past several years, as the credit expires and is renewed for a single year. That on-again, off-again authorization has curtailed investments, since companies are leery to place multimillion dollar orders for wind generating equipment if there's a chance the tax credit won't be available when they're ready to build wind power plants.

Congress will provide a big push for wind by requiring progressively lower greenhouse gas emissions starting around 2010. To help meet the new mandates, electric utilities will be lining up to buy power made by wind turbines -- in most cases, a cheaper alternative than building fleets of nuclear power plants, which produce no carbon emissions, or paying to pipe carbon dioxide many miles for burial in old oil wells or rock formations.

State governments will pitch in in a big way, too. They'll offer more tax incentives for installations, make it easier to build the new transmission lines that will be needed to move power from heartland wind farms to coastal areas, and require utilities to use more renewable resources. Twenty-six states now have such mandates, which are sticks, not carrots: "Utilities who don't meet the standards pay a monetary penalty" to state regulators, Nadeo says. Many other states will follow. The most notable exceptions: southeastern states such as Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi, which have poor wind resources.

Pickens is off base on part two of his plan, though. It envisions a big part of the U.S. auto fleet running on natural gas that's freed up by electric utilities shifting to wind. The technology is readily available -- indeed, many cities now run buses on natural gas, and a number of gas-powered Honda Civics cruise California's highways. The bugaboo is infrastructure: Converting large numbers of autos to run on natural gas would require massive investments to deliver the gas to service stations by pipeline or thousands of delivery trucks. In addition, keeping natural gas-fired power plants humming is a must if the nation is to build out wind power. They'll be needed to sub for wind power when breezes die down.

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