???Mesa Power, the company T. Boone Pickens created to oversee his massive Texas wind farm, has run into some funding trouble. With the recent credit crisis, Pickens is having a hard time tracking down investors willing to loan him $7 billion so that the turbines can spin on schedule.
??? Now there is speculation that the American government will be footing the bill in a subsidy we have never seen before.
???Pickens is the progenitor of the Pickens Plan, an initiative to supply one-fifth of America's power using wind power by 2011, relieving a decent portion of America's dependence on foreign oil.
???More than that, this plan will remove some of America's use of oil, period. It will be the first major American push towards green energy, and if it succeeds it may be viewed historically as the tipping point towards a fossil-fuel-free future.
???The problem is that government subsidies of businesses goes against the idea of the free-market, and is unfair. In a normal situation, Mr. Pickens should be able to generate investment based on the strength of his plan, and if the government bails him out, why not every other struggling entrepreneur?
First of all, this is not a normal situation. It is entirely possible that days count when thinking about our effect on climate change. Second, fairness is an invention created by whiners. Third, no one else is even trying to pony up the dough for a project like this, much less proposing something at once so beneficial and ambitious. When someone does, they can petition the government for a subsidy too. Until then the question is academic.
Tie some strings to the money if need be. In fact, do, because free money has a habit of disappearing. If this starts a precedent, accept that government-sponsored innovation is better than no innovation at all. But it must be accepted that continued reliance on oil, foreign or otherwise, is shortsighted and dangerous, and we have the means to free ourselves from it forever, if we try.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
