Old cowboys rescue New World

Ted Turner’s at it again. No, he didn’t buy another set of cable stations or a new bevy of bison; he’s out to solar the Wild West.

Turner and Southern Company announced today that their Cimarron Solar Facility in New Mexico is up and zipping out enough voltage to power 9,000 homes. The Turner Renewable Energy, Southern Company cooperative effort picked up the project from First Solar last March.

"We are very excited to see this project completed and producing clean solar energy to power homes and businesses in New Mexico," Turner was quoted as quipping about the project. "Large-scale solar generation is among the fastest growing energy sources in the world, and we're pleased that we can be a part of that growth."

Turner is known for doing his own thing at his own pace; so, his leap from TV to rancher to solar scholar isn’t all that out of his normal range. However, what’s surprising is the number of old school cowboys (both real and imaginary) that have joined him on the renewable energy side of things.

Let’s be honest. Cowboys don’t really have an image of progressiveness. Old trucks, old dogs and old horses are more their style. But, renewables---especially solar---may be a dark horse in this cowboy race.

Let’s take the ultimate TV cowboy from the 1980s, good ol’ boy J.R. Ewing, who stopped time (it seemed) until their writers of “Dallas” finally revealed who shot him. The actor who played J.R., Larry Hagman, popped up last summer hocking SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker. The commercials played off the cowboy/oil days of old and offered a new and shiny energy alternative in solar.

And Hagman himself does have a 94-kilowatt solar system on his estate in Southern California. He also sits on the board of a nonprofit group that helps build solar systems in places of hardship and poverty worldwide.

Hagman isn’t the only oil-based cowboy (albeit an imaginary one) to embrace renewables. In real life, Oklahoma oilman (and self-proclaimed Oklahoma State University cowboy) T. Boone Pickens has introduced “The Pickens Plan” which is a long-term energy plan to get off of oil by using a whole lot of wind and natural gas transportation. Of course, this was a great idea for him since he was all set to invest a ton in a Texas wind farm that, unfortunately, never got off the ground, leaving him with a lot of wind turbines to spread around.

But, the interesting connection between these three cowboys remains that investment in renewables. As Pickens saw a huge market in consolidating oil companies in the 1980s, it appears he may see another ground floor opening with renewables this time around.

And a couple of other cowboys seem to see that on the horizon as well. Wind farms and solar arrays do speak to the loner spirit of the cowboy---being far away but still managing a few creature comforts. And, perhaps it also speaks to the push cowboys often have to forage into new territory and new frames of mind. It may be that old cowboys will ride to the rescue of this new world (at least in the form of renewable energy) after all, leaving me to wonder: Are renewables the next “oil boom,” so to speak?