09/12/2008 07:38 AM

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A Better Way to Power Your Car: Use the Breeze Page 2

States outside of ranch country are also chiming in on the wind trend. California's largest project is a 4,500 MW cluster of wind farms in the Tehachapi Mountains in the south that will soon supply a large part of Los Angeles's electricity. Some 30 other states - led by Iowa, Minnesota, Washington and Colorado - now have commercial-scale wind farms.

New wind proposals are popping up everywhere. In July, California-based Clipper Windpower and BP announced a joint venture to build a 5,050 MW wind farm in eastern South Dakota. Since this would produce far more electricity than the state needs, the companies plan to build a transmission line across Iowa, feeding the electricity into Illinois and the Midwestern industrial heartland.

In the East, Delaware is planning an offshore wind farm of up to 600 MW - enough to meet the residential needs of 40% of its residents. To the north, in Maine, a proposal by the governor to develop 3,000 MW of wind-generating capacity (more than enough to meet the state's residential electricity needs) passed both houses of the legislature unanimously in April. In the Northwest, Oregon and Washington are turning to wind to complement their hydropower resources.

While most of these developments are in the planning stages, the potential - and the desire for wind energy - is high. That's because wind wins on almost every count. It is carbon-free, cheap, abundant and inexhaustible - and it is ours. No one can embargo the supply, the price never changes, and wind farms can be built in 12 months.

Why Natural Gas Doesn't Make Sense

This is why shifting to natural gas to fuel cars, as Pickens recommends, isn't the best move. In contrast to wind-generated electricity, where costs are falling, the price of natural gas is on its way up. Reserves of natural gas, like those of oil, are shrinking. And ironically, as with oil, we import natural gas, sending money abroad for one-sixth of our supply.

Beyond that, there's the infrastructure question. How do we get the natural gas to the nation's service stations? These stations also would need to install pumps for natural gas, in addition to those for gasoline.

One of the attractions of pairing wind energy and plug-in hybrid cars is that it would not require new infrastructure. Indeed, a study by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory points out that the existing grid, using its off-peak capacity to recharge cars, could provide electricity for more than 70% of the U.S. fleet if all cars were plug-in hybrids.

With peak oil on our doorstep, the prices of oil and gasoline are projected to continue rising. While gasoline prices are probably headed to $5-$10 a gallon, the wind-generated-electricity equivalent of a gallon of gasoline costs less than $1.

We are now in a position to launch a crash program to convert to plug-in hybrids on a massive scale and at wartime speed. This would resuscitate Detroit, reinvigorate thousands of the country's wind-rich rural communities, dramatically cut carbon emissions and quickly reduce the vast outflow of dollars for imported oil.

The car companies themselves seem on board - witness GM's massive advertising push for the Chevy Volt, with spots airing frequently during NBC's Olympics broadcasts. After showing a progression of cars, the ad ends with the Volt, standing at the base of snow-capped mountains, clouds traveling swiftly overhead. Its launch is targeted for 2010. Perhaps by then, the wind moving the clouds will also power the sleek-looking sedan below.

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Lester Brown is Executive Director of the Earth Policy Institute and one of our top thought leaders in the field of green business.

To understand how we can cut CO2 emissions 80% by 2020, see Chapters 11-13 in his Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.  You can download it for free at the website.

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