The Lone Star State's renewable-energy mandates - combined with the federal government's generous tax credit for wind-energy production - have helped Texas become the nation's leading installer of wind-energy capacity. You won't find much opposition here to wind energy's rapid expansion, because so much money is pouring into the state. It's all fun and games - until Texas consumers pay the long-term price for everyone else's short-term gain. And pay they will. In my just published study, Texas Wind Energy: Past, Present, and Future (PDF here), we estimate that forcing even modest levels of wind-energy generation on Texans will cost ratepayers and taxpayers up to $4 billion a year, and at least $60 billion through 2025.

The potential for wind energy is vast, but forgive West Texans if they have an overblown (pun intended) view of what it could mean in the future. Among those, of course, would be Panhandle oilman T. Boone Pickens ...All that said, we have to understand the realities of the entire nation and not be dazzled by the positive effects that have been and will be felt from a regional standpoint.

The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens' plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say and do just about anything to make another billion or two. This column previously discussed the plan's technical and economic shortcomings and marketing ruses. Today, we'll look into the diabolical machinations behind it.

Unrealistic energy policy is not limited to Washington, D.C. Numerous states clamor for "green" status - picking energy-supply winners and losers and rushing to judgment in the ongoing and unsettled debate on greenhouse-gas emissions. Environmental groups have virtual veto authority over cleaner coal-fired power plants, nuclear facilities, and oil refineries, which can meet an exponentially larger portion of energy and electric demand than the heavily subsidized renewable energies. ...Consumers deserve energy realism, not fanciful plans to replace fossil fuels with renewables. When misguided environmental theory dictates energy policy, the result is high prices, unreliability, and inadequate supply.

I don't have the benefit of a $58 million marketing campaign, but I'm willing to throw down my own five-point proposal, culled from years of writing about, researching and discussing the issue with energy experts, including Pickens. My plan begins with the idea that energy is really about economics. The solutions, therefore, must make economic sense. That doesn't mean consumers won't have to pay more - we will. And providers must be able to make reasonable returns. Subsidies are fine to develop technology, but we can't sustain businesses that aren't profitable without them, which is why I'm skeptical of wind power.

It's hard to grasp, though, how parts of the plan would be implemented. Assuming all the rights to millions of acres could be acquired and the wind farms built, there's still the problem of wind itself. It doesn't always blow. A recent study by Cambridge Energy Research Associates found that wind power is least available between June and September, the peak months for electricity consumption. When the turbines are becalmed, we'll need other power plants - primarily gas-fired ones, which can be started more quickly than other types of generation - to meet demand. What's more, someone has to pay for building transmission lines to carry the power from the prairies. Guess who? In Texas, the cost of new transmission lines is born by consumers, not the generators.

The large wind farms just to our north on the Kenedy Ranch are under construction and the owners expect to have 250 wind turbines generating enough electricity to power some 90,000 homes by the end of this year. ...While the privately owned Kenedy Ranch is the site of wind farms under development by private corporations, the government continues to prop up the industry through subsidies in the form of tax credits. In other words, wind farm development likely would be a less attractive business venture without help from the government.

Much has been written about the merits or demerits of wind energy as a viable source of electricity generation for meeting the growing needs of electricity consumption in the United States. No matter which side of the debate one comes down on, one issue is crystal clear. Trillions of taxpayer dollars are being poured into the wind energy corporations' coffers to enhance the return on investment strategies with a guaranteed commitment by federal, state and local governments for a 10-year period. According to a recent report by the National Renewable Technology Laboratory (DOE), wind energy could account for 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030. To reach this target, wind turbines would have to produce 300,000 MW of power or 1,000,000 MW installed capacity. The 500,000 plus wind turbines would cost the taxpayers between $5-7 trillion.

We like the idea of wind power because it seems natural and clean. Windmills, after all, are part of our pastoral vision of Americana - power, nostalgia and patriotism rolled into one. What's not to like? Only the economics. Wind power, despite the government's best efforts to create a market, continues to be dogged by the same problems it always has: high costs, limited reliability and bad location. No wind, after all, blows forever, and when it does, it's not blowing where people need power. Even now, West Texas wind farms sit idle, awaiting new power lines to take high-priced power to the people.

[L]et's take a closer look at the wind business to figure out why America isn't already running on free wind power. One reason of course is that Americans are spoiled and want the power to be on all of the time. ...That is a problem when the wind doesn't blow all of the time.But more importantly, if you do the math, the investment in this part time power plant alone, neglecting transmission, profit, and operating overhead, is $13,000 per home. I say part time, because we must remember that someone has to own the backup power plant that isn't making any money when the wind is blowing. Solar in some ways is even worse when it comes to the massive arrays and land necessary to place them on. And like wind, solar is not full time, science has not figured out how to keep it from getting dark at night. I am certainly not against technology, just so long as we get the whole story. Like ethanol, we can burn our food supply, but not without repercussions.

HR 3089 seeks to combine several policy components into a single strategy of weaning this nation off its foreign-oil habit - which has resulted in the United States importing 60 percent of all the fossil fuel it uses each day.

For environmental and geopolitical reasons, the U.S. must reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Traditional coal-fired plants are dirty and contribute to foul air problems in North Texas and elsewhere. Coal gasification, a cleaner technology, is relatively untested on a large scale. Wind and solar power are clean but insufficient. Natural gas is becoming more expensive.