The most workable and affordable energy plan is one that throws in pieces of everything, from increased oil and gas exploration and production to increased conservation and efficiency in heating and transportation to multiple fuels and power sources for vehicles and electricity generation, old and new (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, biofuels, even new coal technologies and a nuke or two). Such an approach doesn't make for flashy advertising campaigns or snappy slogans.

The first issue is the high cost of wind power, which is about 2.5 to three times the cost of coal-generated power. Large wind-power projects exist only because of large government subsidies. Otherwise, wind power would be restricted to a few applications where the physical isolation of the electricity demand precludes extending the transmission network to the site. The other major issue is the intermittency of wind power. Even on the best of sites, wind turbines generate usable power less than 30 percent of the time ...T. Boone Pickens' claim that wind power will reduce the need for natural gas in electricity generation is spectacularly wrong.

Pickens' plan is basically a couple of pie charts showing how he'd like to see the U.S. energy economy work. ...He gives no specifics publicly, but he's made it clear that it's up to Congress, not consumers or investors, to make this vision become reality. Because Pickens has announced his gambit in the name of the environment, the media have dropped the skepticism they usually apply to the claims of businessmen trying to make a buck. Because his plan involves government - meaning you and I pay the costs - that skepticism ought to be even greater.

Here's a scenario OPEC would kill for: Your product gets pricier and pricier, and yet demand grows relentlessly. That's the rosy picture facing the world's wind-turbine makers. Denmark's Vestas, the world's biggest turbine maker, reported a big jump in profits today-and a $10 billion order book for more. With a global thirst for clean energy, some companies stand to clean up. Turbine prices have risen 74% in the last three years-and yet countries from the U.S. to China can't get enough of them.

Mr. Pickens and Mrs. Pelosi share the same talking points downplaying the need to drill and open up more access to American oil. Instead, the Pickens pie-in-the-sky plan proposes to replace natural gas with wind power in electricity generation and theoretically free up natural gas for America's transportation needs. All well and good in la-la land, but let's be real about the limitations and costs of wind power.

Accompanying the myth that wind turbine energy will replace fossil fuel energy is denial of the ecological impacts and health effects of wind turbines by governments and promoters. The ugly reality is that wind turbines are a serious addition to the industrialization of quiet rural landscapes, places that people have long valued for quality of life, retirement and recreation. The environmental costs imposed on wildlife and people have been systematically ignored by a political and regulatory system that has corrupted individual and societal freedom and environmental integrity by relegating these values to some distant offshoot of economic growth.

There is one fly in Pickens's ointment, however. Along most of the "wind corridor," the wind blows the strongest and steadiest before the sun rises; its strength diminishes until the hottest point of the day, just as the demand for electricity, particularly in the summer months, peaks. As a result, replacing natural-gas base load capacity with "wind watts" does not work. Peak loads still will have to be met with natural-gas generated electricity. That will diminish by billions of cubic feet the amount of natural gas available to be converted to transportation fuel, defeating the essence of the plan. The wind corridor is essentially in a single time zone, so morning-wind-generated electricity cannot be "wheeled" to afternoon consumers. Unfortunately, there is no economical way to store wind watts for use later in the diurnal cycle.

But 22 percent by 2020 is far-fetched. Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and expensive (even with subsidies). Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot, 7-ton, bird-slicing blades. They operate at only 20-30 percent of rated capacity - compared to 85 percent for coal, gas and nuclear plants - and provide little power during summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but winds are at low ebb. ...Launching the enterprise with the backing of federal mandates and subsidies minimizes his [Pickens] financial risk and attracts semi-free-market investors, by putting the risks for his scheme on the backs of taxpayers. A $58-million ad campaign could pay 100:1.

Democrats can't get to Denver without dumping carbon into the air. They're washing away the sins of transportation and electrification by purchasing carbon offsets from a Vermont-based broker called NativeEnergy. ...This modern-day indulgence is officially called the "Green Delegate Challenge." For a mere $7.50, delegates and attendees can buy a carbon offset, making them at least theoretically responsible for new alternative energy. They can then forget about the emissions from jets, limos, buses, trains and taxis they take to Denver. They also can flash the lights, crank up the soundstages and rock 'n' roll like the dominant force they've become with that rhetoric about saving the planet.

Even with heavy subsidies from ratepayers and taxpayers over the last two decades, wind supplies only about 1 percent of America's electricity and 2.3 percent in Kansas. A study by the National Center for Policy Analysis determined that wind energy and other renewables and conservation received between $30 billion and $50 billion over the last 20 years. This represents the largest governmental peacetime energy expenditure in U.S. history, outranking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve program as well as spending on the synthetic fuels program during the mid-1970s. A short-term threat to the growth of wind energy is the looming expiration of federal tax credits at the end of this year. But the wind industry should not ask for more government support. It should be made to stand on its own.

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.

What's the problem with the Pickens Plan? We've been told that the main obstacles to wind power are financial and technological. The Pickens Plan buys into this logic. But senior wind leaders know more. They have revealed that while technology and investment matter, one of their biggest challenges to installing large wind farms is building social acceptance. Don't Americans love wind power? A 2008 Zogby International public poll reported that 85 percent of the 7,000 Americans surveyed agreed that federal incentives should support wind-energy development. While polls show that most Americans overwhelmingly support wind power in theory, few communities are asking for large-scale wind projects in their back yards. ...While the Pickens Plan is bold, it lacks a nuanced understanding about the obstacles to wind power. Where there is a lack of social acceptance, it is often the result of industry players who assume that "green" power is always welcome and can operate outside the bounds of the democratic process. The Pickens Plan shares some of this hubris.

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.

For an East Coast liberal hoping to make it to Denver for next month's Democratic National Convention, air or car travel can create quite the carbon-foot printed nightmare. While the DNCC has attempted to help limit the number of guilty consciences by offering to sell delegates carbon credits alleged to help offset damage to mother earth, it turns out that a primary source of these credits is a sham. ...an eastern Colorado wind turbine "tapped for the [DNC's] carbon-offset problem has one problem: It doesn't generate any electricity."

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.

Those familiar with T. Boone Pickens' history will not be surprised to learn that no one is better positioned to benefit from the Pickens Plan than Pickens. His Mesa Power happens to be building the largest wind farm in the world in the Texas panhandle, with as many as 2,000 turbines. It will produce the equivalent of four large coal-fired plants and double the entire wind energy output in the country. He will soon own the majority of the wind power market. ...The billionaire says he doesn't need the money. That's obvious, but it's not the same thing as saying he's not doing it for the money.

The warning, "Be careful what you wish for," is beginning to have ironic resonance in the energy economy. The more utopian environmentalists, for example, seem to be between the proverbial rock and a hard place, even if they don't know it or won't admit it. ...When some interest group whether the drill-more crowd or green revolutionaries advances a sure-fire solution, look behind the rhetoric.

Oil man T. Boone Pickens recently announced his own large program to help get America off its oil addictions. His message in his own Texas twang starts off appealing, while he properly and accurately reports on the $700 billion annually we now spend on imported oil, now at 70% of our total oil consumption. ...Regrettably, near the middle of his advertisement T. Boone wandered off into an alternative energy universe, proposing that wind and solar energy replace the current 22% of our electricity produced by natural gas. Neither source is a true alternative, and are merely erratic, unreliable, supplementary energy sources.