Skelly eventually found something bigger than a moonshot, and to his failure.įDR had the New Deal.
Before finding his next moonshot, he meandered for a bit including a failed stint to win a seat in Congress as a Democrat in a heavily Republican Texas district. The company was eventually purchased by a larger European energy developer for a reported $1 billion. As an employee, his company developed and sold wind projects all over the United States. He served as the chief development officer in a company owned by former oilmen who understood energy and rolled snake eyes on the acceptance of buyers desiring clean, plentiful, and cheap wind power. Michael Skelly made a small fortune as an early developer of wind farms. No one seemed interested in listening when he raised the volume on the need to build a new national grid and transform the energy supply. Although he did not reach the same name recognition as Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, he sure deserves some credit. He is an example of a once in a generation superhero without the cape and tights. The author Russel Gold gets the reader rooting for Michael Skelly. For residents of Houston, the reason you have so many protected bike lanes was again, you guessed it thanks to Michael Skelly, an avid cyclist who petitioned the car friendly city to protect and expand bike lanes. Guess who located within the Oklahoma panhandle enough wind power generation to eventually supplant coal generation long before shutting down carbon spewing coal plants was fashionable. Guess what, Michael Skelly engineered this. While zip lining through tree-tops in Costa Rica during my honeymoon, my wife and I marveled at how such large concrete foundations holding up ski-lift like systems could be assembled at such high altitudes. See the interview of Russell Gold by Energy Central. The author Russell Gold is senior energy reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Skelly’s vision was not a pipe dream and his pursuit to piece together the foundational modern grid is the premise of Superpower, One Man’s Quest to Transform American Energy (Simon and Schuster, 2019). Power lines and electrical towers, substations and utility poles, and a spaghetti mess of electrical lines running to each home represent how very much society runs on electricity and yet this significant dependency is the same system that was built more than 100 years ago.Įnter Michael Skelly, an infrastructure builder with a vision to modernize the grid not only to strengthen the connections but run electrons generated from renewable sources. Granted the view is cross-crossed with power lines and steel towers but we hardly notice becoming immune, overtime, to these man-made structures. Chasing the sunset west traveling the open road is a vison of natural beauty.
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