When Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens was the subject of the Playboy Interview in January 2007, he did a pretty good job of previewing what this summer’s conversation has been about. He talked about the consequences of $100-a-barrel oil, the environmental and policy problems caused by energy dependence, and the need to find alternative fuels. Today Pickens went to Congress to push a plan he has developed to make America energy-independent.
"Our country is in a deep hole and it's time to stop digging," he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "We have walked into a trap and . . .we have to work together to get out of it."
A big part of his proposal involves using solar and wind power to replace oil and coal, and to that end, Pickens is currently building the world’s largest wind farm in West Texas, one that could eventually see 2000 turbines set on 200,000 acres, generating 4000 megawatts of electricity a day.
Oddly, Pickens didn’t have too much to say about wind when he talked to us ("We were in wind for about three or four years,’’ he told interviewer David Sheff, "but I was never really enthusiastic about it.’") Going from indifference o a $6 billion investment in eighteen months: is there a better indication of how fast our energy realities have deteriorated?
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