They Call the Wind Maria…

Away out here they got a name
For rain and wind and fire
The rain is Tess, the fire Joe,
And they call the wind Maria

Maria blows the stars around
And sends the clouds a’flyin’
Maria makes the mountains sound
Like folks were up there dying

– ‘Maria‘  from Paint Your Wagon

Growing up in Nebraska, one of the constants was the wind.  Spring, summer, fall, winter it was always there – bringing the bone-crushing cold from the Canadian wilderness in the winter, or the oppressive humidity in summer.  Sometimes it was as soft and gentle as the breath of a lover – other times it was a screeching, howling banshee, ripping asunder anything in its path.  In the spring thaw it would waft the odor of the stockyards across the city and almost a century ago, it damn near redistributed the geography of the middle US.  Still, it was always there – and farmer and city dweller just learned to cope with it.

Now comes a plan to really do something with it.  And as it took a Nixon to go to China, this plan comes from one who led the way in building this nation’s petroleum industry…

I have a clear goal in mind with my plan. I want to reduce America’s foreign oil imports by more than one-third in the next five to 10 years.

How will we do it? We’ll start with wind power. Wind is 100% domestic, it is 100% renewable and it is 100% clean. Did you know that the midsection of this country, that stretch of land that starts in West Texas and reaches all the way up to the border with Canada, is called the “Saudi Arabia of the Wind”? It gets that name because we have the greatest wind reserves in the world. In 2008, the Department of Energy issued a study that stated that the U.S. has the capacity to generate 20% of its electricity supply from wind by 2030. I think we can do this or even more, but we must do it quicker.

Works for us — anything that can reduce our dependence on resources coming from a region  where his nibs claims  influence, where we can eliminate a pressure point for near peer rivals to exploit, we’re for.

Our forebears used the wind to draw water from its buried aquifers for irrigation and to water the herds to build and feed this country – why not again to ensure its independence?

Afterall – everything old is new again…