Ted to the Rescue: Turner, Southern to Let the Sun Shine In

I'm always a little skeptical when big, overwhelming cultural icons set out to save the world. I thought Al Gore's heart was in the right place, even if he was sort of fuzzy on details. His movie was enjoyable, and I groove on his obvious desire to help. The T. Boone Pickens one-two punch of natural gas conversion and wind farms (the Pickens Plan) I found odd and suspicious, especially after research dug up that Pickens owned natural gas conversion companies and wind farms. Just confirmed to me that his heart wasn't in the right place, but his wallet was.

Now, Ted Turner---man-about-CNN, man-about-bison, man-about-town---is teaming with Southern Company on a new renewables project. Unlike my feelings about Gore, I'm not sure Ted's heart is in the right place. (Yes, I remember that Turner gave a billion to the UN, but I'm leaning more towards my Pickens-inspired suspicious nature again.)

The details: Southern Company CEO David Ratcliffe and Turner today announced a strategic alliance to pursue development of renewable energy projects in the United States.

"This alliance unites our common goal to explore and develop new renewable energy projects," said CEO David Ratcliffe. "We have said for some time that renewable energy should play an increasing role in this country's energy mix and that Southern Company would seek opportunities to expand our renewable portfolio where it makes sense. This is evidence of that commitment."

"I've always been passionate about developing renewable energy, and I'm excited to join forces with Southern Company to explore our renewable energy potential," said Ted Turner, owner of Turner Renewable Energy. "Southern Company's experience in power project development, construction and operations, and customer relations help make this a strong alliance, and I look forward to working together."

Initially, Southern Company and Turner will focus on developing and investing in large scale solar photovoltaic projects in the U.S. Southwest. Southern Company and Turner "also may consider developing other renewable technologies."

See, it could be the vague language of the announcement that makes me rather suspicious: We're gonna do something solar, somewhere in the great, wide West, probably on Ted's land, and, if we stumble on new and neat-o technology, we'll maybe sell that, too.

Now, Turner is the largest individual landowner in North America (according to him, to Wikipedia and to Southern Company). So, they could spend years just playing on Ted's land alone.

Perhaps I shouldn't suspicious. It isn't like Ted's new to these causes. He did create that awful cartoon series "Captain Planet and the Planeteers," which was aimed to teach kids environmentalism, even if it did just mostly teach them to talk in flat and annoying platitudes about recycling---inevitably repeating those platitudes to parents whose combined net recycling effort probably wouldn't offset a fraction of Ted's impact on the environment (given his land, properties, development of electricity-sucking TV stations, etc.).

But, my suspicions aren't just limited to the motivation behind this announcement. Honestly, when I read Turner's quote (the one noted above), I thought, "No way he said that." That seems mighty tame after telling Charlie Rose a few years ago that, if we don't act on global warming science, most of us will keel over and the rest of us will be cannibals. Now, that is classic Ted Turner.

So, basically, this whole announcement with Southern seems too tame and vague to be of the true Turner vein. Come on, Ted. Olly olly oxen free. Come out and give us the juicy details of what is really going on.