Energy: How the T. Boone Pickens Plan may have the Water and Wind Power Solution the US Needs

Dallas, 1 Sep. If you’ve ever played the board game Monopoly you would have noticed one of the most strategic moves is to own both the utilities companies: Water Works and Electric Company. T. Boone Pickens seems to be well on his way to doing just that.

Dallas, 1 Sep. If you’ve ever played the board game Monopoly you would have noticed one of the most strategic moves is to own both the utilities companies: Water Works and Electric Company. T. Boone Pickens seems to be well on his way to doing just that.

Thomas Boone Pickens was born in Oklahoma to an oil rights negotiator during the oil frenzy of the late 20s and early 30s. He studied geology in Texas and quickly began working drilling for oil. Just five years after graduation, he started his own company, and by the early 70s was taking over other oil and gas companies, all much larger than his own.

Eventually, Pickens became one of the richest men in the United States, with a net worth of around three billion dollars. At 80 years old, it’s hard for many of us to image a Texan billionaire oil baron – a long-time supporter of the Republican Party – endorsing anything other than what brought him his fortune and business fame: Oil and big business.

In the face of an ever-critical oil crisis, aggravated by a war in Iraq, and controversy on whether or not the US should drill for more oil in Alaska, energy policy is on the top of everyone’s political agendas – especially Obama and McCain’s.

So what does Pickens think? “I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil,” Pickens says. On his website he even seems to endorse Senator Obama’s energy policy – being in line with the need to invest in natural gas and alternative energy sources.

Water is another of the tycoon’s recent underground exploits. Directly below his 68,000-acre ranch lies the Ogallala Aquifer: A quadrillion gallons of water. This is one of the largest aquifers in the world and stretches from South Dakota to Texas.

In Texas, the land and any groundwater under are subject to different ownership rights. This means that if Pickens can successfully access the aquifer, on a large enough scale, he will be able to supply it to Dallas/Ft. Worth – which is exactly his intention.

And he’s not stopping at water. He feels the age of oil has died. Economically the US is far too reliant on foreign oil reserves, he says, and it’s costing us $700 billion per year. Wind power is where he’s placing his bets, a bet that will mean that the US relies on wind power for 20% of its domestic energy, and natural gas for transportation.

The Pickens plan calls for a massive wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, which is one of the windiest places in the US. Pickens argues that it’s geographically central location will make it easy to supply this clean electricity to the rest of the nation.

But getting the power lines pipeline (which would incidentally be on the pipeline) through to the big cities is proving to be difficult. Texans don’t just let you dig through their back yards. Either way, Pickens believes they will eventually need it, maybe the same way Singapore buys its power and water from Malaysia.

If the oil tycoon’s actions are anything to go by, it looks like he will succeed. He has already invested more than $100 million and eight years, and certainly has the resources to make it work. He has a lot of people to convince along the way (lots of ranchers with lots of guns), and will need strong environmental leadership in the White House.

Who knows? Soon T. Boon Pickens may just own Water Works and Electric Company, along with a far more sustainable energy policy than what the US currently has.

Vladimir Gonzales, EconomyWatch.com