Famous Oilman Ponies Up Billions for Wind Turbines

A few weeks ago I read a column by Thomas Friedman in the NY Times about the absolute lack of any energy policy in the US. The most galling fact was that at the end of this year, federal tax credits for installing solar and wind power systems will expire. How can we let this happen, when we're staring blankly at $125 a barrel oil, that our congress can dither and let the most important incentive to creating new clean energy expire? In Germany, they guarantee the price of a kilowatt of solar energy and they have farmers putting in panels on every field. Everyone gets it, that we need to encourage and promote solar and wind...except us.

Today's WSJ has a story that once again shows the capitalist system pushing in the right direction, despite of the lack of initiative from government. Famous oilman T. Boone Pickens just placed the biggest single order ever of General Electric wind turbines for a planned 4000 megawatt wind farm he is building on the plains of Texas. He ordered 667 of GE's 1.5 megawatt turbines, spending $2 billion on just the first phase of the giant Pampa Wind Project.

People like Pickens hope that the federal tax credits are extended, of course. State-level incentives like the laws that demand a certain percentage of power be clean are helping. But the good thing about capitalists charging down this road is that it shows that it's not for hippies any more, and that clean energy like wind and solar are real answers to the energy conundrum.