I'm here at an panel on the Pickens Plan, featuring Carl Pope of the Sierra Club, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, and T. Boone himself. (And I have internet access!)
Most interesting tidbit to come from the panel: T. Boone had a 30 second commercial that began, "Iran is moving its vehicle fleet to natural gas so it can sell oil to us at $140 a barrel. And we're doing absolutely nothing about it." NBC rejected the ad! They said, "can you prove we're doing nothing about it?" (I've tried to find the commercial online -- I'll post it if I can track it down.)
Otherwise, there were no fireworks -- mainly because the session was never opened up to questions from the audience. I know lots of people were geared up to ask aggressive questions -- the green left is in an uproar about Pickens. They think he's constructed his entire plan as a triple-bank-shot attempt to make more money from water rights and ... I don't know, a bunch of other stuff that makes him Satan. See here.
I have trouble getting worked up about it. The first thing Pickens said is that he's given $700 million to charity over the last five years, and that when he dies his entire estate will be donated to charity. "This isn't about making money." Now, maybe he's lying. Maybe he wants to make more money ... so he can give more to charity? Maybe he's lying about giving money to charity?
But the notion that he would go through this elaborate, baroque effort to make money, when he has so much money already, and so many opportunities to make more money when he wants ... it's just not plausible to me.
Pickens also said nice things about climate change and Gore -- he said it's "on page two" for him, and he'll work on that once he reduces the oil imports, but he's not a denier, he's not working against climate change solutions.
He's also dialed down the natural gas stuff a bit -- now he's mainly pushing it as a substitute transportation fuel for the truck shipping fleet, which turns over quickly and could be shifted to nat gas much more seamlessly. (Also, trucks aren't really amenable to electrification, without much better batteries.)
The point I'm getting around to -- and the panel just reinforced this for me -- is that it seems perfectly sensible for Carl Pope and other enviros to be opportunistically taking advantage of Pickens' money and his high profile to be driving smart energy policy. Pickens' plan is one among others -- Gore's plan, CAP's plan. The point is to build a head of steam, to build momentum behind the notion that we need a plan. As Pickens said, "a fool with a plan will beat a genius without one every time."
I'd go even farther: I've seen Pickens speak several times now, and each time he seems a bit softer, a bit more mellow, and a bit happier. I tend to think doing good work is good for his crusty old soul. He's finding out that people he's long thought of as evil Socialist whatevers are actually good, smart, pragmatic people, willing to work with him toward common goals. Doing work to unite people is having a salutary effect on him, and it seems to me we'd be smart to encourage that, make a model of it, rather than rejecting it and him out of old animosities and weird conspiracy theories.
It is not good political strategy to erect high walls around your issue and keep people out. I am sick of purity tests. Yay for T. Boone!
(Warning: I'm exhausted from very little sleep and may be slightly punchy. I reserve the right to completely change my mind about this tomorrow.)
Fossil fuel subsidies dwarf clean energy subsidies; Obama wants to eliminate them
Comments
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stopgreenpath Posted 9:44 am
27 Aug 2008
when is someone around here gonna stand up for the ratepayers, taxpayers, homeowners and ecosystems these kind of mercenary centralized energy projects destroy? sorry, we don't have fancy lobbyists and TV commercials, but i expect more from Grist.
we HAVE a plan, but there's no crony money in it, so government is ignoring it and Big Enviro sellouts like Carl Pope aren't gonna get their cabinet positions unless they prove, over and over, that they are not only ready, willing and able to sell out wilderness to Big Energy profiteers, but they are pre-emptively doing it as a kind of creepy audition.
point of use solutions must be phase I. i don't mean a few mercury-poisoned CFL bulbs and kooky kartoon mascots telling us to flex our power. I mean aggressive feed in tariffs, net zero building codes, R & D into storage, efficiency and generation systems, smart metering and other POINT OF USE, DEMAND SIDE SOLUTIONS which cancel out the false "need" for massive centralized infrastructure and transmission, and the gigantic-scale ecosystem deaths and GHG emissions that will result.
why do you guys hate ratepayers, taxpayers and the planet? why can't you advocate what's best for all us species other than Big Energy profiteers? why cheerlead scumbags like Pickens and ignore Germany, Spain, Japan and the 35 other countries successfully installing 2+ GW of rooftop solar apiece every year, which enriches their residents and saves their environment and ours?
there. you have a plan. if Pickens wants to save the world, and doesn't want to profit. he can finance THIS plan...
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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Jon Rynn Posted 10:23 am
27 Aug 2008
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GreenMom Posted 11:06 am
27 Aug 2008
Once they're awake and they start hearing what the solutions are, maybe the clamor for drilling will be less effective and we can have a real conversation.
The We campaign is a disappointment. If T. Boone can get people to listen, then we've at least started down the path.
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bigTom Posted 12:45 pm
27 Aug 2008
I'm with Dave about the money thing. At Picken's age, by the time any of his current projects could make him money, he will likely be gone. So I think his motivations are as stated: he sees serious problems for the future, and would like to do what he can to mitigate them.
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:04 pm
27 Aug 2008
We, the entire world, sure seems to be in a whole bunch of trouble. We've no time to be fighting on who achieved enlightenment first.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:56 pm
27 Aug 2008
but simply a way to rescue our economy from oil disaster, oil war, until we get plugin hybrid and pure electric vehicles running on renewables.
A much better plan now. Can we forgive him funding the swiftboaters and Jerome Corsi? Never.
Even this plan can't redeem him, he would have to come out and support Obama and apologize for and totally repudiate the swiftboating.
Pickens come clean. You did a very wrong thing that doomed us to 4 more years of destructive bushwacking, an act verging on treason.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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amazingdrx Posted 3:26 pm
27 Aug 2008
The reduction provided by a switch from long haul trucking to freight rail (8 to 16 times less fuel use), and both using natural gas instead of diesel, could take over for the second and third years.
These engines can be converted to natural gas.
Then after three years plugin hybrids and ground source heating could come into mass production for a few more years of reduction.
Finally electric trains and plugin trucking running on under highway charge strips, and all electric cars could power down oil use to a tiny fraction, no longer a problem to wage wars over.
A steady rate of reduction would take all the power over the world economy exerted by OPEC and the oil kleptocracies and big oil monopolies and turn it around.
Revenge is good, hehey. We would get to watch all the oily ones wither and fail.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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ce1907 Posted 3:52 pm
27 Aug 2008
pay attention to details in the plan; address it as you would any other
what you think is the start
will be identified as others as the maximum -- the hero said it was all that was needeed
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Russ Posted 7:01 pm
27 Aug 2008
Well, you could've asked the same question 20 years ago, 30 years ago....
The simple fact is that someone like this IS existentially greedy. That's what he does - seek to add to a treasure hoard which decades ago was already to big to ever "use" for anything.
That's what greed is. I know Americans don't like the idea of congenital, immutable character, but passing sociopolitical fads like the American experiment don't change the way man has always been and always will be.
As for why wind, and does that mean he's at least trying to do good while doing well, well maybe.
Of course, at the same time he's currently engaged in a vicious land and water grab which even he can't justify except with the lame equivalent of, "if I don't do it someone else will". With that logic you can, of course, justify any evil act.
So here we see a textbook example of pure greed, which has no purpose other than itself.
(He's aggressively using eminent domain, which Republicans claim to hate. Of course they don't really hate it, except where it's used for its proper purpose, by government for the public good. There they loathe it.
But let it be used in a law of the jungle, right of the stronger way, to enrich a private predator, the way Boone wants to use it, and the Right is all for it.)
So maybe he really thinks wind will be profitable, or maybe it's a way to deflect bad PR from his water/land grab, I don't know. I do agree that it's fine to use the publicity for wind he's generating (as to whether this will ever "generate" more than hype, we'll see).
But as for looking into his soul and finding him good, or at least better, ask those Texas landowners or the future people who will go thirsty because that aquifer "needs" to be attacked now.
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MAD MAC Posted 8:55 pm
27 Aug 2008
Victory in Pattani
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ehsdirector Posted 9:59 pm
27 Aug 2008
Should be - Iranians are moving quickly to vehicles powered by natural gas so they can free up their $120 a barrel oil to sell to us. (source http://www.pickensplan.com/news)
RE MAD MAC: ".. this is the single biggest problem with the green movement. There's another agenda at work that has NOTHING to do with the environment." RE CE1907: "..be careful who you make a hero, pay attention to details in the plan; address it as you would any other" - Critical
We are already out Billions in Green T.V. and "awareness" ad's. Talk is NOT cheap nor is blindly following a hacked over Jimmy Carter energy plan (no offense, to President Carter, it was a great plan for then).
RE JON: "we can fight over the actual plan, and make it better." - Amen!
There are NO ground breaking or earth changing parts of the Pickens or Gore plans we have not all heard before - True. Like all others they fail without political and controlling markets support. Pickens will have both. To "win" a three decade old war on oil and energy we can not pick favorites or point out obvious corruption (it surrounds nearly everyone in these sectors).
We have agreed to disagree in the short term to make our long term goals.
Stop picking apart the person and focus on fixing the problems. No "one man" or "one plan" can fix this.
And regardless of who takes office this election... we need this to save our future with strong regulations that change the paradigm.
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vakibs Posted 12:56 am
28 Aug 2008
Pickens only wants to stop the flight of US$ to the middle east. An honorable mission, but this is all he cares about. He has no particular love for the environment.
He wants to drill like a maniac in the USA. This may be bad, but not too bad.
He wants to burn all the US natural gas in cars. This my be stupid, but not too stupid.
But imagine what happens after say 20 years, when there's no more natural gas.
If Pickens is still alive and kicking at that point, he will start shouting support for coal liquification, and for the conversion of coal into natural gas. The mask of the devil will then fall away (if it has not fallen away till so far.. I won't be surprised if Pickens is supporting coal liquification already !).
When natural gas is diverted for cars, more coal will be burnt for baseload power. Unless this is arrested by a rapidly growing renewable power industry, this will clearly worsen the global warming problem.
This comes down to the basic issue : the direct enemy of the environmentalist community is not oil, but coal. It's time to listen to Dr Jim Hansen.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:18 am
28 Aug 2008
About 25 years ago the ideas that we call "Reganism" came into popularity. These ideas were supposed to fix our problems and lead us into a better future.
We gave them a partial try under Regan and watched a downturn in our country and economy.
Then we gave Clinton a chance to take us into a different (and better) direction. But only for a couple of years before the Reganites took over Congress.
The most forceful advocates of Reganism argued that the reason that things weren't better under Regan was that we didn't go far enough.
Through hook and crook they took us there. And our country started a rapid slide to the bottom.
Eighty percent of Americans now say that we're on the wrong road. (I figure that about 18% of the others are lying for the Party and 2% are clinically deranged.)
People who become vastly rich are not likely to be enormously stupid. Pickens and others like him are quite capable of looking at where Reganism and far right Republicanism has taken the country. They can see that what we tried is a dismal failure and that we need to go a vastly different direction.
Give the guy a little opportunity to change.
Remember that Pittsburgh newspaper publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, who was one of Bill Clinton's strongest attackers - financing much of the right wing hate stuff - has turned 180 degrees to support Clinton.
Remember that Lyndon Johnson, one time racist, turned into a major supporter of equal rights, probably doing more for minorities than any other President.
People do change. It's OK to be a little cautious while we wait to see if their conversion is real and if it sticks. But it's best to hold off on the attacks for what they did in the past if they are now working in the right, rather than wrong, way.
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Russ Posted 2:49 am
28 Aug 2008
Perhaps, but you should really consider what he's actually doing right now in Texas.
I'll link this from the dc examiner. It's short enough that I'll just reproduce the whole thing here:
T. Boone Pickens wants your water
By Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist | 8/21/08 7:10 PM
Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn't own. As he does it, it will be praised as a planet-friendly wind project. After he pulls it off, the media will deride it as craven capitalism. In truth, it is one the most audacious examples of politics for profit, showing how big government helps the biggest business steal from the rest of us. The plotline behind Pickens' water-and-wind scheme is almost too rich to believe. If it were a movie script, reviewers would dismiss it as over-the-top.
The basic story amounts to this: Pickens, thanks to favors from state lawmakers whose campaigns he funded, has created a new government whose only voters are two of his employers; this has empowered Pickens to more cheaply pump water from an aquifer and, by use of eminent domain, seize land across 11 counties in order to pipe the water to Dallas. To win environmentalist approval of this hardly "sustainable" practice, he has piggybacked this water project onto a windmill project pitched as an alternative to oil.
Pickens' scheme is a perfect demonstration of why it's worth asking cui bono -- who benefits -- from regulatory and environmental initiatives. Last week, this column pointed out that Pickens, before his current lobbying blitz for increased federal support of wind power, built the largest wind farm in the world.
I received dozens of responses from environmentalists and Pickens fans objecting to my implication that Pickens' profit from expanding wind subsidies ought to cast suspicion on his call for more wind subsidies. "Why should I care if someone's getting rich?" was the general gist, "windmills are good, and we need more of them."
This objection is grounded in a good instinct: The profit motive, far from being evil, is the driving force behind most of our society's advances. But, especially when it comes to government plans involving your tax dollars, asking cui bono helps us unearth less desirable aspects of the scheme.
Amid all the hype Pickens' windmill plan has gotten, the interesting part -- the water part -- has been mostly ignored, except for an excellent Business Week story by Susan Berfield and a column by Steve Milloy.
Roberts County, Texas, sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground reservoir that stretches all the way to South Dakota. It's in Roberts County that T. Boone Pickens set aside eight acres from his ranch for drilling deep into the aquifer.
Then he turned this parcel into a town, basically, with only two eligible voters -- both of whom were his employees. (This required a change in Texas law in 2007 -- a change facilitated no doubt by his $1.2 million in campaign contributions to Texas legislators in 2006).
Then there was an election in this district, in which both voters voted to make this 8-acre municipality a special fresh-water district.
Pickens' wholly owned government entity now can issue tax-free bonds (meaning he can borrow at a serious discount) and use the power of eminent domain to pressure landowners to sell -- or to take their land if they hold out. The eminent domain power is key to building the pipeline that will run this water down to the Dallas area, where Pickens hopes to sell the water. If your land lies in the path of his proposed pipeline, you got a letter explaining that T. Boone wants to buy a stretch of your land -- and explaining that he can use eminent domain if you resist. If this begins to sound too cutthroat to the public, Pickens just reminds journalists and politicians that following this water pipeline will be the transmission cables for Pickens' mammoth wind farm.
Are you really going to side with some greedy holdout ranchers over the future of green power? Sure enough, the Sierra Club is now rallying behind this whole scheme.
Nobody owns the aquifer -- that would be too capitalist, of course -- but in Texas, whoever has the water beneath his land can pump as much as he wants. The limits on this are usually pumping capacity (which requires money) and ability to sell it (which requires, among other things, pipelines). Pickens has cleared those hurdles, and now he can drain the aquifer faster than anyone ever before, future generations and other water users be damned.
This is why, when presented with some big government program, it's worthwhile to ask who's getting rich -- because you may find something interesting when you look below the surface.
Examiner Columnist Timothy P. Carney is editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report. His Examiner Column appears on Fridays.
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Russ Posted 3:04 am
28 Aug 2008
So, take it for what it's worth. Remember, this is what he's doing now, not back in the 80s.
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