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Some major power behind wind farms

Yesterday, T. Boone Pickens, the famous oil tycoon and brilliant investor, announced his intentions to help offset our nation's excessive dependence on oil with a huge plan - offered to both Obama and McCain as well - to focus on the most cost-effective and renewable source of energy . . . wind from wind turbine farms.

And here's his commercial that he's apparently spending ten million of his own cash to air on national television networks:

And just today, General Electric announced that it had expanded (to $4 billion) its investment in turbine wind farms with

76 wind farms worldwide with a total capacity of more than 4,000 megawatts. The company plans to spend $6 billion on renewable energy by 2010.

. . . GE Energy Financial Services has or will invest in 76 wind farms worldwide with a total capacity of more than 4,000 megawatts. The company plans to spend $6 billion on renewable energy by 2010.

. . . They include a 126-megawatt wind farm in Wethersfield, a 106.5-megawatt farm in Chateaugay and a 97.5-megawatt site in Altona. Combined, the turbines can generate power for about 110,000 homes, the company said.

These are all magnificent steps in the right direction.

Now, if only the neighbors of The Kennedys, (plus video) whose spacious properties overlook Nantucket Sound, wouldn't get their gilded pantyhose in such a knot over the thought of Sound-based wind farms dotting their water landscape, then maybe we in Massachusetts could continue setting the national trend and agenda for successful energy creation and distribution through either land-based or sea-based wind turbine farms.

OPEC, speculators and American oil companies: which candidate has the guts to create a serious alternative energy plan?

REVIEW

OPEC's public rationales and the logic they employ make little or no sense when one studies their words, as you wonder who taught them the market concepts of supply and demand and as we think about which American Presidential candidate will have the guts to develop a serious alternative energy plan for America's future.

Strategy One
In the basic supply-demand concept, companies naturally and understandably want the ideal, which is to have demand for their product be much greater than the supply they produce. That allows the company to maintain a higher price for that product, sometimes referred to as a premium, and in the world of capitalism, consumers pay "what the market will bear."

Strategy Two
Additionally, some companies make the effort to control the absorption rate with which their products enter the marketplace, which simply means that they want to control - and maintain, through how much they produce - their preferred prices for their products as often as they're able.

Now, the first strategy is standard fare. No big whoop.

But the second strategy is where we've had problems with OPEC and America's oil companies. We've heard almost minute-by-minute contradictions over the years as to why the price of a barrel of oil suddenly spikes up . . . a fire at a particular facility or pipeline, some civil unrest in a major oil-producing country, etc., etc.

But now, because the equities markets (stocks) worldwide are doing so poorly and because the U.S. dollar is so painfully low against the Euro, the Yen and numerous other world currencies, despite the lowest interest rates from The Federal Reserve and World Bank, we're now hearing an ever-growing chorus of contradictions - and internal division - coming from OPEC as to why we're fast approaching $150 a barrel oil.

For example, does OPEC like the $4 plus per gallon in the U.S.? Some oil ministers say no, because it hurts demand. True enough.

Yet today we have King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the world's number one oil exporter, blaming speculators while also calling on consuming countries to get used to high prices.

Also today, we have Chakib Khelil, the president of OPEC, say that they have concerns that future demand for oil may be in jeopardy because of the now increased chances we'll find some alternative fuels.

Hey, you can't, on the one hand, expect us to believe you're unhappy with the current price per barrel because it so negatively impacts demand, then tell us to get used to paying $4 per gallon or more at the pumps while at the same time express concern about a loss in future demand and still expect us to believe that the blame for current prices fits squarely on commodity speculators!

And if you're so concerned with future demand on the wane, wouldn't you want to do whatever it took to discourage or prevent your customers from pursuing fuel alternatives, either by making price adjustments down or at least increasing production so that natural economic supply and demand forces create a more stable and reliable environment for everyone?

Oh, then of course, there's the P.R. part of this picture.

With the manipulations and threats OPEC has made for the past 35 years - along with the inexplicable record profits American oil companies have enjoyed - we may all be just about ready to start kicking each of them to the curb, little by little.

We can start by putting Turbine Wind Farms (with solar panels) atop every acre of landfill, connected nationwide to a grid that stores and distributes enough energy to power their respective communities - and still be able to share the surplus elsewhere.

Hey, it works in Hull, MA.

It can work for us all with the power of a new President behind us.

Hey Al Gore, would 'ya talk to the Kennedys for us?

EDITORIAL

Where's Al Gore when you really need him?

Last week, just before the start of the Memorial Day weekend, we took a trip to Hull, MA and on the way back, made sure we shot some video of their apparently very successful Wind Turbine towering above the town. This is the same Wind Turbine, in concept, that alternative energy advocates want to put into Nantucket Sound, as Wind Farms. But unfortunately, sound energy policy - definitely no pun intended - has been trumped, so to speak, and again with no intentional pun, because these turbines would then be within eyesight of the wealthy waterfront homes of the Kennedys and their fellow neighbors of Hyannis.

Last we checked, they have (whomever they are) somehow managed to stop the Wind Farm installation in Nantucket Sound. Whether they've done so for the self-serving reasons of preserving their pristine backyard waterfront views or because they feel entitled to unfettered sailing throughout Nantucket Sound, despite the projected as substantial energy savings from such an effort, there are no Wind Farms in a body of water where they could do the most good and become a respected prototype to further our nation's goal of reducing our dependence on oil.

Is this yet another example of Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy (our prayers are still with him) and John Kerry forever telling us how we should behave, yet they're entitled to march to their own drummers?

Whatever.

Ethanol, biofuels, skyrocketing food prices, $4 per gallon @ the pumps and hey, where is Al Gore?

EDITORIAL

If you took a position that became untenable, unworkable, impractical and unpopular because you and your supporters had myopically failed to anticipate the full financial consequences of what you were recommending and the pain you were now causing, especially to poor folks, you probably wouldn't be available either.

We're talking about biofuels and the negative impact many are saying they're having on worldwide food supplies, as per The New York Sun:

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.

Last year, Mr. Runge and a colleague, Benjamin Senauer, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.”

“We were criticized for being alarmist at the time,” Mr. Runge said. “I think our views, looking back a year, were probably too conservative.”

So why is everyone looking for a statement from poor Mr. Gore?

“Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said.

Frankly, we're active environmentalists, recycling paper, plastic, batteries, ink cartridges, fluorescent lights, we're even buying hybrid vehicles, essentially taking whatever steps are necessary to do our part in preserving and protecting our environment.

But now, faced with $4 per gallon prices at the pumps, OPEC warning us of $200 a barrel for oil, warehouse clubs restricting sales of certain foods, articles detailing the unprecedented coming food shortages in the U.S., riots and death from rising food prices in the Caribbean, the domino effect that surging fuel prices have on air travel, weekly grocery bills and overall forced cutbacks in spending worldwide - as well as the mounting scientific challenges to and allegations against his environmental theories - at this point, we kind of think Al Gore should have just retired, maybe sit on the front porch of his estate smooching Tipper, do lunches with Leonardo DiCaprio or count chads.

Ouch?

Hey, if the above isn't sufficient proof that Al Gore has gotten it all wrong and that too many innocent and poor are now paying the price, then let's just wait for some more suffering, you know, just to be sure.