The Answer, My Friend

MSNBC is reporting that the Texas legislature has just approved a $5 billion Wind Power project.

Texas officials gave the go-ahead Thursday to the nation's largest wind-power project, a plan to build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to bring pollution-free energy from gusty West Texas to urban areas.
Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and wind supporters say Thursday's move by the Public Utility Commission will make the Lone Star State a leader in moving energy to the urban areas that need electricity.

Several hundred miles to the north, your friendly neighborhood blogger (moi) is going to fill you in on a few of the details that MSNBC neglected to report, because it fairly well ticks me off. One detail in particular:

Wind power benefits from a 2-cents-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit. The credit is set to expire in December, and wind backers have urged Congress to enact a long-term extension.

What MSNBC neglected to remind the reader is that this tax credit was unceremoniously shelved a few weeks ago. I, however, told you about it on the old site after reading the report on yahoo.

Separately, Democrats also failed to get Republican support for a proposal
to extend tax breaks for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. The tax breaks have either expired or are scheduled to end this year.

Both parties of idiots are evidently willing to let that tax credit expire.

The other glaring omission from the MSNBC report is their throwaway reporting of T. Boone Pickens--an advocate for wind power who made his money as an oilman. Devoting only the last 5 sentences to Pickens, MSNBC neglects to even mention his plan or his website, and so, like Paul Harvey, I'll give you the rest of the story. Pickens's plan rests on two major factors: wind power for electricity, and compressed natural gas for automobiles. While not a perfect plan by any means, at least Pickens has taken initiative (something shown by all historically great American innovators) and approached the energy problems of the future from a different perspective. Bullet points:

• Wind turbines don't interfere with farming and grazing, so they don't threaten food production or existing local economies. (unlike corn-based ethanol)
• Building new wind generation facilities and better utilizing our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years.
• Natural gas is our country's second largest energy resource and a vital component of our energy supply. 98% of the natural gas used in the United States is from North America. But 70% of our oil is purchased from foreign nations.