Relaxed in a large armchair at a recent conference in Anaheim, Ca., oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens with his heavy Texan drawl likened the U.S.’s energy crisis to a Greek legend and made an argument for wind power.

In “The Sword of Damocles,” the ruling tyrant, Dionysus, lived a posh life with servants hired for flattery.

Damocles, one of Dionysus’ entourage, laid on the praise with a heavy hand. He prattled on and on about how wonderful it must be to have so much power and wealth.

Dionysus said, “Have at it, hoss, just for a day.”

Damocles lounged in Dionysus’ chaise, popping grapes and enjoying a gentle breeze from the palm-frond flapping concubines.

All seemed well, but when he looked up he saw a razor sharp sword glistening above his head, held by a single horse hair.

Quite disturbed, he turned to Dionysus, who explained that the feeling of power would not be complete without the ever-present risk of falling from it.

The moral from Pickens’s perspective is, the more you have, the more there is to lose, and the more people want to take it from you.

And right now the same proverbial sword is dangling right over America, and the single thread that is keeping it from taking off one of our ears is our ever-thinning supply of energy.

As a nation we consume 25% of the world’s oil and produce a quarter of the planet’s greenhouse gases, yet we constitute just five percent of the population. Sounds like a gluttonous ruler, eh?

Well, that’s exactly the way Mr. Pickens sees it.

Even though he’s made over $2.5 billion in oil during his life, he knows we must switch to alternatives if we ever want to sheath that sword.

And what he proposes we do is distribute our energy needs among different alternative resources and get hostile oil and gas supplying countries off our back.

As a matter of fact, Pickens is so gung-ho about alternative energy he’s putting $6 billion in a wind farm in his home state.