Pickens Choose

Texas oilman unveils Pickens Plan to avert U.S. energy crisis 12

T. Boone Pickens.

Photo: University of Texas

America has a problem, and T. Boone Pickens has a solution. "U.S. dependency on foreign oil has reached an economic crisis point," says the infamous Texas oilman, who in response has unveiled The Pickens Plan. The 80-year-old billionaire proposes that private investors fund the construction of thousands of wind turbines from Texas north to the Canadian border, as well as transmission lines to carry the power to urban centers across the country. Wind could thus generate 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs, says Pickens, and in turn free up natural-gas resources to fuel transportation. Natural gas could replace 38 percent of U.S. oil imports, according to the plan -- provided infrastructure for natural-gas-powered cars gets up and running. If Congress and the White House treat the energy situation as a "national emergency" and act immediately, says the lifelong Republican, the Pickens Plan could be implemented within a decade.

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  1. GreyFlcn Posted 8:03 am
    08 Jul 2008

    Which is pretty muchWhich is pretty much the same as the GOP Energy Chief's plan.
    Except swap Nuclear power for Wind power.

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  2. christophersj Posted 2:08 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    Natural Gas

    How much less CO2 does burning natural gas compare to gasoline?
    How much less particulate/aerosol ?
    My elementary understanding of this says NG is much better, but not sufficient to get us to a 80% by 2050 goal.  Is this your understanding as well?
    There are neat ideas out there that parallel Honda's home garage unit that reform NG into hydrogen.  Maybe a CCS system can be attached to that?
    Honda's current NG Civic (with home garage unit) is known for being particularly clean.
    But maybe this is all second rate goods compared to what we really need to be doing.

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  3. GreyFlcn Posted 2:43 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    Answers, kind ofWell here's a relative assessment on the CO2 levels.

    http://greyfalcon.net/electriccars2.png

    http://greyfalcon.net/svlglca.png
    Particulates, probably pretty significant.
    And as for Resource availability.

    http://greyfalcon.net/energy2.png

    http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png
    One flaw of course in Picken's plan is that we need that natural gas to run peaker plants.  Specifically the ones which need to be operation to cover shortfalls for Wind Power. So the idea that we would not need that natural gas for electric power is a little silly.
    However, then again apparently Boone thinks it'd be a great idea to turn the Oil Shale we have into Natural Gas.  Which may make it economically recoverable....

    http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05/21/avfi-2008-t-boone ...

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  4. christophersj Posted 3:04 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    Holy shitHoly shit that's a lot of coal, Grey Falcon.  So there is a lot of methane and NG coming off those underground patches.
    So on the NG car, its "nice" on GHG but not sufficient, and its probably awesome on reducing old-school air pollution.

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  5. John former Marine Posted 10:06 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    Cool....so I can keep driving then?So does his plan include incentives to keep me consuming his energy (now in the form of natural gas)?  Wow...I'm relieved....here I was thinking that the end of cheap oil might mean that we'd finally get back to living close to the earth, to having good communities, to meaningful lives.  But if we can keep suburbia running on natural gas and wind power, this is really good news.  In fact, maybe I'll move a little further from work and start driving to work now that we've got such a great plan.  I suppose if peak oil had put the brakes on development, we would've saved the Amazon and it's millions of species...but now that we can keep going, exploit away!  There must be some rare metal down there that we can mine and send north to build our new "natural" gas cars with.

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  6. JakobFabian01 Posted 10:32 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    Pickens loves nukes, too.Here's a quote from the website that "GreyFlcn" has helpfully provided (http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05 etc.):
    'The main problem, Pickens said, is that 85 million barrels a day is as much oil as the world industry can produce. That's it. More simply isn't possible. The trouble is, in the next quarter, demand will be around 86.5m barrels each day. The only solution that Boone sees is to make all the alternatives - he singled out wind and solar - much (much) bigger players in America's energy portfolio. For example, even with all of the problems with corn ethanol, he'd rather use it than foreign oil.
    When it comes to natural gas vehicles, Pickens said, the U.S. seriously lags behind the rest of the world. There are 7m natural gas vehicles in the world, but only 150,000 in the U.S. It hurt him to say so, but he wishes the U.S. had followed France into the nuclear frontier. Also, Littlefair and Pickens agree that natural gas is a bridge to hydrogen.
    As for politics, Boone is not pleased with the energy policies of either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. He's a McCain supporter, but on the summer gas tax holiday issue, he said that, "I don't know what he has in mind there."'
    Apparently, Pickens is a pragmatist, which is a good thing, since adhering to his principles - consume more of everything, but consume everything harmful first, until the government stops you - would be suicidal, one way or another.

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  7. JakobFabian01 Posted 10:42 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    And I don't love Pickens.By the way, everybody should know that T. Boone Pickens is also a main sponsor of the "Swift Boat" ads against John Kerry in 2004, which were a slimy smear of baseless insinuations against a man who served honorably in the Vietnam War.  In my humble opinion, Pickens is a despicable man, whose obscene wealth brings him much more attention than he deserves.  For my part, whether as an environmentalist or as a human being, I do not care to associate with him.

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  8. kaibosworth Posted 11:23 pm
    08 Jul 2008

    too much gasusing wind for our energy does NOT free up natural gas. Gas must be used as a backup for the intermittent nature of wind!

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  9. azelb Posted 3:17 am
    09 Jul 2008

    Wind Energy Monopoly (GE)The monopoly of the wind energy industry by GE has cause a failure to produce efficiently enough energy to compete with the other energy sources.

    If the turbine was on a vertical shaft with the vanes in the form of the pinwheel there would be a great improvement in the production of amperes which is the most important measure of energy.  The present turbines are suspiciously inadequate for any energy production and look like giant fans.

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  10. Lance Posted 11:25 am
    09 Jul 2008

    Energy for the harnessingWhy oh why isn't somebody working on a way to capture the energy from lightning strikes? We know they strike frequently in certain areas; we know they carry between 10 million and 100 million volts of electricity. What more do we need? Figure it out.

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  11. barbara santoro Posted 3:19 am
    14 Jul 2008

    HELLO TO PROPANE FOR ENERGY!Propane is still cleaner and cheaper than gas (30%) and better yet, available in the US, not imported. No battery, no cord, no wind or sun power necessary. Our solution is a US patented propane (vapors) powered lawn mower running at 9-10 MPH and cuts at 19,000 FPM, has limited maintenance, no waste out the exhaust, no smell, easy to use. Sound good?  Its true!  See it at http://www.mow-green.com!  

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  12. vakibs's avatar

    vakibs Posted 2:06 am
    18 Jul 2008

    pickens explained..Imagine a rich guy sitting on top of a monopolistic business. What would be his primary motive ? It is simple, it is to maximize the amount of profit that can be milked out of this business.
    Mr.Pickens did just that. He puts on his eco evangelist coat at the precise moment when his oil wells run dry and when he can no longer make any money on it. So he tries to shift to the next best monopoly, which is natural gas.
    An illuminating figure about the acting strategy of several countries is their estimated reserve life of oil resources at the current rate of production. Each country wants the world to shift to an oil-free economy based on this particular time frame. No more no less.
    The corporate puppeteers pull their political strings to align public policy with the time frames they have in their mind. Nobody is going to order about a shift to real sustainable energy anytime soon. Not until the greedy guys milk their oil profits or natural gas profits to completely dry.
    Whenever I see a "green" energy plan, I will see how long into the future it keeps us dependent on fossils. This date would not just come out of a hat. It is the precise moment where the profits start watering down.

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