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T. Boone Pickens Calls for Assault on Foreign Oil
 In T. Boone Pickens' war, the enemy is foreign oil.Pickens, the Republican Texas oil mogul, testified Tuesday before a Senate panel to lay out his new, self-titled "Pickens Plan" to boost renewable energy sources, get the U.S. transportation sector off oil, and cut U.S. use of foreign petroleum. Pickens told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that aside from getting away from foreign oil, he's for just about anything, from electric cars like those advocated by Al Gore to offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Recalling a conversation he recently had with Gore, Pickens told the panel: "I'm for everything that's American. I only have one enemy, and that's foreign oil. That's what I want to get rid of." Pickens said installing wind farms, and later solar power facilities in the midsection of the United States, with government help, could produce 20 percent of electricity consumed domestically. That would alleviate the need to use natural gas to make electricity. Under the Pickens Plan, natural gas along with biofuels would power all transportation, reducing foreign oil dependence according to Pickens' numbers by one-third. He also said he believes U.S. national security is in dire straits with roughly $700 billion annually heading overseas to the Middle East and unfriendly countries like Venezuela in exchange for crude. This is more than a disturbing trend line. It is a recipe for national disaster. ... This is a crisis that cannot be left to the next generation to solve," Pickens said, adding: "I am convinced we are paying for both sides of the Iraqi war." "If we continue to drift like we're drifting, you're going to be importing 80 percent of your oil. And I promise you, it'll be over $300 a barrel," Pickens said, responding to a question from committee chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman. "If we do nothing, it's going to be over the top," Pickens said. Pickens' company Mesa Power has invested $2 billion in a Texas panhandle wind farm. One of Pickens' companies also owns about 90 of the roughly 500 publicly available natural gas stations with another of his companies, Clean Energy. But Pickens, chairman and founder of BP Capital Management, also regularly points out he doesn't need the money. "I didn't want to come and go in this life and feel like I had something that would've helped the country. So I though, 'What the hell, it's time to stand up and be counted,' " Pickens said, according to Politico. Note that we already power fleets fo vehicles with Natural Gas, so this isnt like electric cars and fuel cells which still need lots of work - this can be done NOW. We are the "Saudi Arabia" of Natural gas, with current reserves of in excess of 100 years of current demand, and in the OCS and Alaska, enough additional natural gas to yield as much as 10 times that mount. If we want to do something NOW, this is probably the best path. Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-22 |
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