Pickens Plan a “Herculean effort that simply may not be achievable”: Vaclav Smil

I think all the reactions to Pickens' plan that i've read to date make the same error we have criticized in non-"green" economists and planners: no calculations include major strides in energy conservation and effiiciency over the next decade or two. they evaluate the proportion of US energy needs this plan would assist with as if we will take not other steps to conserve or reduce this demand.
AND, it is looked at as if no one is implementing other distributed, alternative energy solutions. and we know these are sprouting up and expanding like crazy.
AND most analysts are looking at just the contribution of wind to the elect. grid, not also factoring in the natural gas substitution for petroleum.
it could be that when all these factors are taken into account (i'm not sure i have the technical chops to model it well), this plan might make a much larger proportionate contribution to satisfying US needs, and to cutting sharply our shipping of dollars oversees, than it is being given credit for.

That's it, always say die!

Pickens plan is unrealistic, but it is a significant step in the right direction. Couple his plan with more Solar and Nuclear power and you may see something quite elegant.

I do know that Pickens is in it to steal water rights, but something good may come of it.

"And even if the turbines were to average 3 megawatts (larger than today’s mean)"

Actually nowadays 2 to 3 MW is more or less the standard for new windturbines in North-Western Europe.
Prototypes of 6,5 MW turbines exist. And 10 MW wind turbines are already on the drawing board.

In the US turbine power ratings are lower because the current US manufacturers (re-)entered the market only recently and need to catch up with European manufacturers. Not to worry, you will learn.

My comments inline:

Pickens proposes $1 trillion in private investment to build the wind turbines that will stretch from the Texas panhandle to the Canadian border and another $200 billion

I'd like to point out this is the cost of the war with Iraq. I would have much preferred to spend this money leaving Saddam in power and have this infrastructure in place than the other way around. That being said, I still think we can allocate this kind of money over the next several years if we withdraw from Iraq and redirect subsidies currently made to oil companies, among other things.

he compares it to the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s

Which did get built, BTW.

political system is gridlocked and the economic problems are deep

Electric brownouts and $10/gal gasoline has a way of focusing the electorate. Let's hope it doesn't come to that and the next leadership core is more forward looking than the current set.

If these turbines were to generate electricity 25 percent of the time — a typical load factor — they would produce enough electricity for about one million households for a year. (The U.S. has more than 110 million households.)

I think this is misleading. This makes it sound like that 5GW running at 25% capacity supplied 1% of the US electricity. Not even close. The USA has a terawatt of installed electric production, and peak demand over 900GW, so 1.25 GW (5 GW running at 25%) on average supplies a little more than one tenth of one percent of our peak need.

Given America’s large budget deficit and more than $40 trillion of assorted debts and uncovered obligations, even a perfect realization of the Pickens Plan would still leave the U.S. on a weakening economic trajectory.

The alternative is to leave things as they are, and get hit totally unprepared when Saudi Arabia and Russia completely stop exporting crude to us. At least this way, we'll have a large percentage of our electricity from renewables, then we'll have te option of deciding what the best use of our natural gas is. Of course, in addition to wind, we should be adding CSP, electric-based rail and bussing, etc. etc. Basically we need an overnight comprehensive plan with WWII type sacrifices from the citizens over 10 or so years to ensure that our children aren't living in the stone age.

So I suppose the idea here is that nothing we, for now still the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the planet, can do can possibly make enough difference to matter. If so, then we might as well give up, walk into the ocean and drown ourselves.

The idea that the funds aren't there is preposterous. We're talking about infrastructure that pays for itself in a handful for years; keep reinvesting the profits and you get the job done in just a few decades for minimal up-front cost. Whether the cost to build the infrastructure and wind turbines/solar panels/etc. to power our world/country is $1 trillion or $30 trillion, we can do it and the economic benefits will far outweigh the costs.

Just look at the long term options. There aren't many.

Option one: leave things as they are. Drain the nation of all monetary reserves, pile on the debt until we collapse under its weight and the rest of the world owns all of our GDP. Burn up every last drop of oil until it stops being energetically profitable (when it takes a full barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil), or else the exporting countries' domestic demand precludes them from exporting any more.

Or option two: Act. Build up other sources of energy as rapidly as humanly possible. Along with appropriate efficiency gains that are already profitable today and with advances and new products expected to be made in the next few years, we should be able to eliminate our need for oil before economic disaster really strikes. Even if not, then the blow will be severely mitigated. At the very least, we can use the money we will have not sent overseas by buying oil to pay for the remaining investment needed. GHG emissions will be significantly reduced as one of the three fossil fuels is eliminated form our energy mix. The technology to produce electricity renewably will get cheaper as it matures, putting us in the best possible position to similarly attack natural gas and coal use.

" If these turbines were to generate electricity 25 percent of the time "

This is also misleading. Wind turbines generate electricity 70% to 80% of the time, however mostly at partial load.

Load factors in the US are typically above 30%.

I also don't buy the final assumption that heavy investment in renewables will destroy the US economy. If anything, it seems like the strongest possible path to address the growing trade deficit, through the reintroduction of US manufacturing in green technology.

Advanced wind and solar will - in the long term, or the short term - be the most economical way to get electricity, and demand will only continue to grow. That puts the US at a distinct advantage in the global economy if they can ramp up commercialization and manufacturing of advanced tech in a big way - and if the US doesn't do it, you had better believe that China will.

The cross-over point where renewables become cheaper than fossil fuels is not far in the future, and things are going to change in a big way.

the above calculations do not include the economic reality that conservation and replacement technology will also tend to drive down oil prices....

regards

We would have never made it to the moon with people of today. Our past generations had a lot more patriotic optimism over todays I want it now and whats in it for me crowd. We use natural gas today to produce a man made energy electricity. The word natural means we don't have to produce this energy form. The fact is we are using 3 units of natural gas to produce 1 unit of electricity.I think we are crazy as the goverment is and its no wander why are country is going broke and living on foreign credit. We want be beat in military conflicts however for the last 30 years countries that hate us want to destroy us economically. Iran,Russia,China,and in our own hemisphere Hugo Chavez. Wake up Americans before its to late !!!!