Wind Power On The Plains
From time to time, I often wonder why it was that I voluntarily gave up Prozac, life seemed a lot less complex, when I shared it with Prozac. More HOT AIR blowing out of Washington DC., last night on the news, which I guess is appropriate, it is after all the middle of summer here in the U.S..
It is an ill wind that blows across the prairie this day, it is debatable if anything good will come of this latest new approach to our energy problems in the United States. Last night on the news they were talking about “fueling cars with Natural Gas.”
My friend across the pond in the U.K. commented today on a 60% increase in her natural gas bills for this winter. Which we can readily see will cripple a lot of folks and put even more stress on their lives.
I am somewhat ambivalent about it, I am not only a user of natural gas, but also a producer of it. Which is good for me, I live in the #3 natural gas producing state in the U.S. I have royalty interests in two working gas wells in Kingfisher, Oklahoma … bring it on. When it gets especially cold outside or the country decides to use even more of a limited resource, my hamburger check each month gets bigger.
It is not a good deal for you however.
You see, although America is a huge producer of natural gas, there are folks in the Middle East that are even bigger producers of the stuff. They have so much of it, that each day, 24 hours per day, seven days per week, they burn it (flare it off) and release it spent into the atmosphere to reduce the pressure on their own wells. If we convert over to this “newly discovered economic panacea” who do you think is going to see their pockets enriched even more.
I will give you three guesses and the first two do not even count.
So in essence, if we convert over to all natural gas burning automobiles and trucks, we are “giving a gift early this year” to our wonderful sand partners in the Middle East. We are in effect, trading one addiction for another.
Can you see why the rest of the world considers us somewhat stupid or ignorant.
Our newly self appointed Energy Czar from Amarillo, Texas, a Mr. T. Boone Pickens wants us to burn natural gas and use more wind power. You don’t suppose Mr. Pickens is heavily invested in either one or the other do you?
He is not doing this for the country, you can bet your last dollar on that. All these big boys in oil are milking it for all it is worth, it isn’t going to last forever.
So now let us move on to Wind Power.
Washington State this week announced that wind power could actually overload the grid and shut everything down in their part of the country. Utilities there are prepared to quadruple the amount of wind power in the northwest, but unfortunately, the electric grid might not be able to carry it.
The problem lies in powerlines, that are only capable of taking about a third of the estimated 4,716 megawatts produced. There is a transmission problem without additional lines to handle the load. It currently costs about $3 million per mile to string a transmission line (when the crack-heads and the thieves are not strippin’ it for the copper).
A resource, in this case, even a “free one” (wind power) isn’t very valuable unless you can deliver it. As for Mr. T. Boone Pickens, after what Big Oil has done to me here lately, I don’t believe I need another friend in the Oil Industry.
Friends like that … don’t do that … to each other.
Think about it.
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RELATED: More On West Texas Windy Joe.
Filed under: Oklahoma, Recent, blogging, random | Tagged: oil, t boone pickens, Washington State, windpower
