I don’t think it necessary for Pickens to donate to Democrats. He’s more valuable as highly regarded person speaking truth to the myth.

Pickins speaks and an audience totally different than the one who reads blogs like this listen. You can’t buy access like that with millions and millions of dollars.

What you’re watching here is a person evolving. Give him credit for his small steps and don’t damn him because he hasn’t become an overnight Avery Lovins.

Lead a life of sin and degradation? Screw over everyone around you? Break every one of the Ten Commandments on a regular basis? OK, you’re scum.

But darken the door of a church and declare that you’ve seen the evil of your ways and want to change and you’re welcomed with open arms.

Sure, people keep a close eye on you to see if your conversion is real or a scam, but if you stray a bit from the fold you are offered support, not condemnation.

They end up turning around a lot of bad actors that way.

Greens might think about doing the same.

(I could also explain this to you in terms of behavior mod if you’d like a non-religious explanation of why we shouldn’t punish Pickens for not being an instant tree-hugger. ;o)

I would also like to see Pickens addressing the Solar question. Large scale solar tower generation provides a 2nd benefit. There is a lot of excess heat in the solar tower approach which can be used to desalinate ocean water. Unless nobody has noticed, we are also running out of fresh water. Solar tower generating systems has the potential to address both needs.

Pickens has a lot of money and it’s tempting to want to get him to do all the fixin’.

Personally I’m really happy that he’s doing some fixing. Much better than spending his money/energy/influence resisting.

In a plan I call “WINDfall for America” a 3 cents-per-kWh on all electricity would generate $10 billion-per-month (yes, PER MONTH!) which could easily pay for the infrastructure needed to convert all residential, commercial and transportation energy use to electricity.

After that, the same 3 cents-per-kWh would generate about $900 billion per year to be used to offset costs for other peoples needs (SS, healthcare, etc).

If you don’t believe me run the numbers available from the American Information Administration.

BUT … also consider this. The 3 cents-per-kWh is an INVESTMENT by “We the People” NOT a DONATION! That means “We the People” reap the benefits of our investment, and “We the People” decide how the pay-off will be spent.

It’s not a fluke that Texas is the leader in wind power. It’s part and parcel of the “drill, baby, drill” mentality. Progressives should demand “save, baby, save” before supporting yet more building of supply. Especially since wind requires that the rest of the grid remain in place, i.e., no fewer coal or nuclear plants, and more natural gas plants to balance the intermittent and highly variable production from wind. What’s progressive about more degraded and fragmented wildlife habitat, altered wetlands, destruction of rural peace and quiet?

The energy in wind and sunlight is simply too diffuse to make it practical to convert on a large scale.

And as an ecologist, one has to consider what the effect would be of taking for human use alone so much of the energy that supports life on this planet.

I am not sure what you mean by too diffuse. The Earth receives a gigawatt of sunlight every square kilometer during the day. That sunlight can be converted into electricity at reasonable efficiency.

The U.S. could get all of its electricity from a small portion of the desert Southwest, if we had the HVDC lines to transmit it. For example, Ausra wrote,

Based on the current technology, a CLFR with SM3 and storage would require 1.5 square miles for 177 MW, translating a national land requirement equal to 23,418 km^2 or a square with 153 km sides.