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Last week wind energy got another big vote of confidence – T. Boone Pickens. This guy is an oil baron who’s actually putting his money where is mouth is on alternative energy. He’s throwing some dough (right now $2 billion) and a lot of media at the problem of oil dependence. He’s betting on wind as the most viable means to solve our energy problem.

I’m a fan. Maybe it’s because I live in South Dakota where it’s windy all the time, but it just makes sense. Use the wind to turn something, capture the energy generated, and then power the surrounding area without any moving infrastructure. No digging stuff out of the ground, cooking corn that we could eat, or nuclear power plants that tend to leak radioactive uranium.

If I had capital at my discretion I would seriously consider investing in wind. The nation hasn’t really figured out its energy problem just yet, but when we do I think wind will be a big part of it. I actually know a guy who was doing the whole wind thing before it had traction, and he foretold a lot of what’s happening today. He doesn’t see it slowing down, and I don’t either.

I know a lot of people think ethanol is the answer. Ethanol is a good idea, but I don’t think we can grow enough corn and grass to make a significant dent in our energy requirements. Yes, it’s a part of the solution, but I think a pretty small part (under 5%).

So we’ll see if wind does what I think it will. I think you’ll see wind generators dotting the horizon all over the Midwest in the next decade.

Tags: General Business, trends, wind energy

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 12th, 2008 at 12:37 am and is filed under General Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.