America is facing a serious long-term energy crisis. The price at the “pump” that people are so traumatized by is really the short-term symptom of a longer term problem. As the largest of the two “third world” nations industrialize, India and China, billions of people are rapidly increasing in their wealth, standard of living, and their energy demands. As a result, the long-term demand for energy is increasing, and despite small changes here and there in the price of oil, gas, and coal, overall, the price of energy will go up unless we dramatically change how America obtains energy for growth.

T. Boone Pickens, is perhaps one of the most notable “oil men” standing up and saying something I believe deeply - while we must drill here, drill now, and maximize our oil output - we must also invest in America and develop a comprehensive strategy for satisfying our long-term energy demands. T. Boone Pickens’ website - Pickens Plan - lays out very starkly the problem we are facing:

America is addicted to foreign oil.

It’s an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people.

The addiction has worsened for decades and now it’s reached a point of crisis. In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil. Today it’s nearly 70% and growing.

As imports grow and world prices rise, the amount of money we send to foreign nations every year is soaring. At current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone - that’s four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

Projected over the next 10 years the cost will be $10 trillion - it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.

America uses a lot of oil. Every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world. And 21 million of those are used here in the United States.

That’s 25% of the world’s oil demand. Used by just 4% of the world’s population.

Can’t we just produce more oil?

World oil production peaked in 2005. Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years. Oil is getting more expensive to produce, harder to find and there just isn’t enough of it to keep up with demand.

The simple truth is that cheap and easy oil is gone.

Not to dispute the great oil man - bowing to his instincts - I’m not entirely ready to admit that we have reached peak oil in the United States. I do believe peak oil may have been reached in Saudi Arabia - the primary source of world oil. Thus, his basic conclusion that “the cheap and easy oil is gone” is correct. Even if we open up America’s drilling grounds, or the Bakken Formations, or the other shale oils found in the United States or territories, is not simple to extract and ultimately will just stabilize, not lower in the long-term, prices for oil-related products and compounds.

Thus, Picken’s proposes a simple concept - wind power.

I’ll be honest, my first instance of seeing wind power oddly enough was at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Because the United States cannot rely on Cuba for water, power, or sewer, it generates its own. It has generated its own utilities since Castro cut off the water back in the 1960’s. When the United States undertook detention operationst at Guantanamo - the base’s size quadrupled in the number of people. A small backwater base of a few hundred suddenly had close to 4000 people on it. That growth placed incredible stress on the water and power facilities. The way the Navy decided to deal with the immediate power issue was to set up a few windmills on the top of the highest hills at GTMO. I watched them get built over the times I visited GTMO during my time at DoD. At the end, the windmills at GTMO provided a large share of the power used by GTMO. A simple solution. I admit they are god-awful ugly looking - and humungous. But - three windmill towers provided about a third of the energy that the base was using when they were all fired up running full tilt. That’s pretty impressive.

Wind power is growing in popularity as an alternative to fossil fuel and one of the best of the renewable energy sources. The use of wind power requires wind turbines. Wind turbine generators do little to harm the environment and are far preferable in this regard to fossil fuel. The only disadvantage is that they cannot be used everywhere. In order to effectively use turbines to generate wind power you would need an average wind speed of at least 13 miles per hour. Now, the conditions for wind power don’t occur anywhere…

Lucky for us - according to Mr. Pickens - the middle of the United States is ideal for such wind generation. Pickens website details:

Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world - by far.

The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country.

Today’s wind turbines stand up to 410 feet tall, with blades that stretch 148 feet in length. The blades collect the wind’s kinetic energy. In one year, a 3-megawatt wind turbine produces as much energy as 12,000 barrels of imported oil.

Wind power currently accounts for 48 billion kWh of electricity a year in the United States - enough to serve more than 4.5 million households. That is still only about 1% of current demand, but the potential of wind is much greater.

I think wind power, solar power, coal, natural gas, nuclear power, all of it needs to be considered. For someone like Mr. Pickens to have decided that Wind power is worth developing suggests to me that it may finally be mature enough to deploy in a serious commercial manner. Thus, I commend efforts like Mr. Pickens and I fully support what he wants to accomplish.

The reason why is a simple one. In one of Mr. Pickens’ advertisements - he talks about how each year we are transferring $700 billion in energy costs to foreign powers. Let’s be clear about who that money is going to - it’s Hugo Chavez, it’s Iran, it’s Nigeria, it’s Angola, and others.  The wealth transfer that will occur because of oil empowers enemies of the United States. The debt we have to incur in order to finance the energy costs is empowering our competitors like China. It is a national security problem as serious as the GWOT or the war in Iraq to limit our dependence on oil supplied by countries who have long-term hostile intent to the United States.

Drilling is going to help. Improving fuel efficiency of cars is going to help. But in the long run - we need to figure out how we’re going to fuel the engine of America. We need a long term plan - and people like Pickens are going down the right path.

Continuing without developing a long-term energy plan for America is the equivalent of taking a star off the flag and giving it to our enemies.