Smart guys? I'm crazy for them. Driving through the Texas Panhandle from Oklahoma City home to Santa Fe this spring, I started to lose count, in the land of windmills, of the new wind turbines that have popped up everywhere in the Great Plains. Everytime I've made this drive, which has been a lot the last couple of years, the number keeps growing. In my uncle's oil business office in the Panhandle, I took a photo of the Dust Storm in Spearman, left, hanging on the office wall. I happened to have just finished reading The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, a National Book Award Winner, about the Great American Dust Bowl. It was a farming method that caused the crisis then, and the area's topsoil blew as far away as WDC and NYC, blackening the cities before attention was given to the policies of land management. That was wind power and farming, then. Now it is the price of gas and oil that is making the crisis we're all feeling in our pocketbooks.
In the Texas panhandle, just north of Sweetwater, is the town of Pampa, not too far from my uncle's town, where smart guy T. Boone Pickens' Mesa Power is currently building the largest wind farm in the world on 400,0o0 acres. When completed, it will double the wind energy output of the U.S. Mesa Power is buying leases up in America's heartland for wind farming.
I thought my dad was a smart guy for not going into the family (oil) business. Today with the price of oil nearing $150/bbl, he'll tell you he's smart for buying Oklahoma City-headquartered Chesapeake Energy stock when it was low, low, low. It was my stock in Phillips 66 that gave me a tiny cushion I invested wisely long, long ago. Ah. Oil and smart guys.
The rising cost of oil and gas might might awaken us from our slumber. Wind farming in the Panhandle and the Great Plains is the next big thing and Pickens is embarking on a plan to save our nation via windfarming. In rolling out his plan, Pickens has been extremely media-savvy, embracing new media and social networking techniques to create buzz. Check out his Pickens Plan site. Pickens plans to spend $58 million on a multi-media campaign to raise
awareness of the country's energy troubles and his plan for fixing them.
The Pickens Plan, outlined in the L.A. Times, could cut US oil imports by as much as 38% if we shift to natural gas as a transportation fuel (and thereby save our country by not sending dollars to other countries to purchase oil) and increase our reliance on wind power. Natural gas is our country's second largest energy resource -- 98% of the natural gas used in the US is from North America, but 70% of our oil is purchased from foreign companies and peak oil was reached in 2005. Domestic natural gas reserves are twice that of petroleum. Using natural gas for transportation (currently only 1% of natural gas is used for transportation) would be less expensive than gas or diesel. Pickens is one smart guy.
One of the smartest gutsiest guys around? JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, at left. He was interviewed by Charlie Rose last week at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Part One is a must-watch, even though it is long. Part Two is short. Watch it for a good lesson in business leadership. If I send you one important link you must see, this is it. A man without hubris.
Another smart guy now gone: Dr. Michael DeBakey, who died this weekend at age 99 in Houston (where I am this week, gimping around in my boot cast), credited much of his surgical success to his mother, Raheeja, for teaching him to sew, crochet and knit. I'm asking my mom if he operated on my granddad quite a number of years ago. I think he did.
Marrying a smart guy was an important thing to me. I did and I'm glad.
earlier today another knitter sent me the DeBakey obit noting what you have. think that many will need to learn new skills in the difficult times ahead. hope everyone is open to non-traditional ideas; my own smart, gutsy spouse began to spin/knit/weave in his sixties. you never know!
Posted by: naomi dagen bloom | July 13, 2008 at 04:06 PM
Dr. DeBakey pioneered the procedure that saved my father's life. Four years ago, when he was 95, DeBakey sat in on my dad's surgery, being performed by his most acclaimed protege. I met him as he was heading toward the surgical suite. He wore huge, enormous clogs and had the sweetest face.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 14, 2008 at 10:32 AM
Public Discussion Forum for Pickens Plan : www.pickensenergyplan.com See you there !
Posted by: scotty | July 14, 2008 at 11:40 AM
My smart hubby taught himself guitar and now he's teaching himself piano. I REALLY want to put a windmill on top of the mountain. I'm sure we get enough wind to supply most of our needs.
Posted by: Janet | July 14, 2008 at 01:01 PM
Those photovoltaics do the job for us. And the solar hot water.
I don't need a smart guy to tell me that it's great to get a $.00 electric bill.
Posted by: Hattie | July 17, 2008 at 12:02 PM
I've been driving past wind farms just off Interstate 10 between So. Calif. and Phoenix, AZ for years. I certainly admire the energy they provide, but they aren't very attractive, but then neither are oil derricks. The wind mills have also proven to be deadly for birds.
That said, there are quite a few populated areas the winds whip through that could be good sites for such windmills. We're prime here for solar systems with more sun than we know what to do with. I hope in the very near future more such systems will become more prevalent.
Posted by: joared | July 20, 2008 at 03:08 AM