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T. Boone Pickens Still Doesn’t Get It, Thinks Obama Will Fall For His Plan |
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Pickens came out with a statement today on Obama’s economic stimulus plan speech. Here it is (via email, emphasis mine):
“President-Elect Obama’s comments in his speech this morning represent an important first step in solving our nation’s energy crisis and getting our economy moving again. Investing in alternative energy, focusing on conservation and rebuilding our power grid to deliver that energy to every corner of our country are critical components of this effort. As the new Congress and new Administration begin work, it will be critical that they focus on the need to dramatically reduce our dependency on foreign oil, which strangles our economy and threatens our national security. President-Elect Obama made it clear that he also understands the important role that transportation will play in solving our energy crisis and I am confident that he will recognize that as we reduce our imports of foreign oil, there the only domestic resources available are natural gas and plug-in batteries that can have an immediate impact on this effort. A program focused on renewable energy, conservation, improving the grid and replacing foreign oil with domestic resources in our transportation system is something that I believe will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and revitalizes our economy.”
So Pickens thinks our best shots to reduce dependence on foreign oil (a straw man, but that is a separate point) are plug-ins and natural gas vehicles. As is often the case, he is half-right. Investing federal dollars in a natural gas vehicle scheme would be a foolish and counterproductive blunder of epic proportions. Plug-in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids, on the other hand, are an essential component of securing a sustainable energy future. In the long-run, a transition to nearly 100% all-electric vehicles, plugging into a grid powered by clean and renewable sources, is the only option. In the short run, here are a few relatively easy things we can do to decrease oil consumption (and imports):
1. Mandate CAFE standards that increase every single year.
2. Increase the federal gas tax.
3. Invest in public transportation.
4. Offer tax credits and other incentives for consumers who purchase zero (and low) emissions vehicles.
Fortunately, Barack Obama is not as gullible as Sarah Palin, and won’t be falling for the Pickens Plan. Hopefully he is wise enough to emphasize building new railroads (supertrain!) , rather than more unnecessary highways.
I’m still trying to understand T. Boone’s motivations. He’s 81 years old. He’s already a billionaire. And he’s working awfully damn hard to make more money. If I were him, I’d just be enjoying the lap of luxury in the remaining few years I have - or even better, doing great philanthropic work.
Is it just an ego thing, so he can say I made more money than any other oil tycoon? Somebody (not me) should write about this as a case study of the mentality of the super rich.
@ Jim Moss. I rather think that Boone’s commitment is based on his conviction that he is correct in his assessment of the energy situation. The points in opposition to his assessment being raised here are relevant - far better than most of the reflexive opposition I have seen - but are not so obviously persuasive that we have to see Boone’s persistence in his assessment as a reflection of either self interest or poor judgement.
Among the reasons I have not discounted the Picken’s energy policy are these:
**It addresses our dependance on (imported) petroleum, which I think is an important value, even though it does not fix the CO2 contribution to climate destabilization effectively. (NG does have a smaller CO2 effect than gasoline, despite its relatively lesser energy content.)
**At least in the initial stages the infrastructure for use of NG can be focused on fleet operations, which would contribute significantly to reduction of gasoline, and petroleum, demand.
NG is still relatively cheap as an energy source (per unit energy yield) yet at the same time has lesser adverse impacts on the environment than petroleum and coal. Increasing the useage of NG may increase its price, but would also reduce total EQ impacts resulting from “fossil fuel” useage.
**The “peak oil” nexus is, at the present time, a petroleum problem. NG has apperently not reached it’s discovery or production peak, and we do not yet know enough about NG diagenisis, exploration, and production to be able to say when that will happen. As much as we would like to be able to limit CO2 generation by reducing Carbon based energy source useage, we are very likely to be using NG (and even methane) in addition to ethanol as a cushion to reduce the impact of our inevitable tumble down from the petroleum peak.
**I have not yet seen convincing quantitative analyses that show that conversion of the transportation energy infrastructure from gasoline to NG would be more expensive, in total, than conversion to electricity would be. I typically drive about 400 miles and 6 hours between refuelings of a V-6 Accord. So far I have seen no indication that there is an electricity based transport energy regimen that can meet that operational demand.
All good points, but what raises my suspicions (and apparently Josh Nelson’s, too) is the fact that his plan to rescue America from it’s energy crisis conveniently relies on the two things he is heavily invested in - natural gas and wind. Plus, I’ve heard rumblings that what this is really all about is water, the scarce commodity of the future, which located underneath all the land where these wind trubines are supposed to go.
Yes, I understand that we should be sensitive to Pickens’ investements in both NG and wind. But it seems to me that Pickens investments are not the cause of his commitment to and advocacy of his proposed policy and development strategy for these energy sources, but are instead the consequence of his belief that these are the best sources.
So his money is following, not leading, his advocacy; he is investing in sectors which he believes can and will, even must, grow. His advicacy in this respect is an effort to persuade the rest of us that we are missing the best bet, at least in the mid term, for weaning us off imported petroleum, and for moving us - just a bit more rapidly - to the increased use of wind generated electric power.
It’s better than coal; at least until we can use hydrocarbon producing algae to sequester CO2 into algal (biomat) limestones.
Yes, Pickens is a heavy water investor, at least according to my memory of reports that he is buying up rights to water from the Oglallah aquifer in the Caprock country in the Texas Panhandle (Southern Great Plains). And yes these are prime wind energy areas. But there is historically no legal connection between water rights to underground aquifers and land rights (easements) for wind tower placement. The connection the investments suggest are likely coincidental, except that Pickens, in contrast to most of the US population, is aware of the Great Plains, and identifies - in his way - with its resources, people, history, and future.
Pickens’ political past is troubling as well - such as the amount of money he spent to help put and keep Bush in office. There are a lot of angles to this story, and I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether he turns out to be a hero or a robber baron - or possibly both!
More than troubling, his association with the SwiftBoat crowd during the ‘04 campaign is revolting. He declined to assist the same crowd this time around. I don’t know whether the ‘04 experience left him feeling dirtied and he decided to reform, or whether he genuinely thought Kerry was a bad nominee - as I did. But then I am a Dean Democrat, and did not take kindly to the people who did in Howard Dean, and feel about them the way many Kerry supporters may feel about Pickens and the Swiftboaters.
i’d like the discussants to delve into the more technical of their comments and provide more data . like heat content of nat gas vs. petroleum, so the reader is more informed about the efficacy of some of the proposed alternatives. the french get their electricity about 90% nuclear, their cars are smaller than ours and largely run on diesel, about 30% more efficent than gasoline, and are vigorously pursuing wind and solar. those of us who greeted the pickens plan, perhaps the more environmentalist among us knew it wasn’t perfect and seemed somewhat self interested, still feel that because of the resources boone was proposing to deploy to market and start constructing a wind farm that so far as i knew was largest, baddest, boldest around– and happening now… everyone including al gore and his bunch were yakkin’ ‘n whistling,except california’s governator
For some reason my January 15 response to your comment does not show up, at least on my machine, unless I hit the “click to quote selected text” thingy - then it shows up as a quote in the comment block. If it doesn’t show up by this evening I will repost my response.
thanks jim for the info
Sorry I’m so late to read this article and post a comment but one thing that’s wrong with this article is that I think that there’s a point that Boone makes that sure doesn’t seem like sinking in with many people.
Do you really think that a battery can push a semi truck down the road? (Maybe in 20 years but thats where this bridge idea comes in) The people that are and will be driving these little electric cars that the author talks about aren’t the folks driving for a living, they are the ones who will on average drive 10-20 miles per day from home to work and back home again.
“The bridge”
Boone has stated time and time again that the natural gas part of this plan is a clean bridge to get us to get us to the other side which is a time when electric batteries can push bigger vehicles and hold a charge long enough to get us not only where we need to be going but also as far as we want to be going. I know his plan isn’t perfect, but hey, it’s a plan. The way I see it is that Boone thinks bigger and in this case somebody needs to. Natural gas is the only domestic clean source that we do have plenty of for the next 50 years. I would like to go as far as saying 100 years as new reports keep coming out about new natural gas findings in different shale formations that our technology can get to now all over many parts spaced out over the country (key word being “spaced out”. Think about the drilling and fracking technology we will have in 50 years.
As far as natural gas infrastructure…it wouldn’t take much to adapt to. Like Boone says, “we have it down every alley”.
Show me a better plan on the scale that our country needs and can live with NOW because we need one NOW and he’s calling on people with ideas to pony up and let people know about it. The one thing that people don’t need to hear is critics bashing in his idea because he wants to get rich. This only helps to keep more brilliant individuals who have ideas that don’t have the balls to take the heat and let the world hear their ideas. The list of 4 that this author states all are good ideas but don’t do it for me as far as reducing oil consumption on a large scale NOW! I think this authors 4 things could reduce our foreign oil imports no doubt but you have to think about the big trucks that make this country go round. Without concentrating on the big rigs, there’s no way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil nearly as much as our Country needs my friends.
The big rigs is where the of vast consumption of petro being used and we have to keep those wheels turning to move products. I believe I’ve heard reports that say if 2 million big rigs were switched over to nat. gas, we would reduce our imports of foreign oil 25% if I’m wrong, please correct me.
I think we all need to think as big as Boone. As far as owning his huge holdings in natural gas and investing billions on wind farms, yeah if we go with his plan he stands to make more money than he could even imagine even though that sounds impossible… but hell, who doesn’t bet on what they believe in. I think we all should, and we damn sure know that he does! Keep on truckin’ Boone!!!
BRETT
reading through the comments, all of you make intelligent arguments–but yours makes about the best sense–you are correct that we need SOMETHING and we need it SOON.
I have read most of the comments, because coming in here(by accident no less—i clicked on a wrong link and started this), i knew next to nothing about this pickens fella, his plan, and the energy crisis in general—-yall have given me boths sides to think about and i thank every one for that
Obama’s credentials areNOT in order.
You are a ridiculous idiot. T Boone knows what he is talking about. You my friend have been duped into thinking that Obama cares about alternative energy, when in reality it is down at the bottom of his priority list. Wake up and smell the pork cooking on capital hill. Don’t be a sucker and believe that Obama’s plan will actually benefit this country in the long term. Borrowing 1 trillion dollars from the Chinese is a bad mistake no matter how you look at it. Read a little Chinese history and you will begin to realize that they slaughtered between 50 and 100 million of their own people in the last hundred years. Don’t be a fool. We need all the alternative sources of energy that we can get our hands on. This should be at the top of Obama’s list of priorities. T Boone is a real American, and you are a lemming. We need to pressure Obama to fix our energy problems, not reward him for being fiscally irresponsible.
I really have to admit that T. Boone is one sharp liar and fraud. The man knows how to turn a buck and he is working it. He is doing his best to develop a natural gas monopoly and at the same time promote it’s use. He is no dummy. If global warming were not an issue he would have a point, but I do believe that switching from one fossil based hydrocarbon to another is just plain stupid. Republican greedy types really don’t care as long as they get in on the money, but the truth is we need to go pure electric and hydrogen power to eliminate the problem. Most of all, the technology already exists and has for years. T. Boone is one smart cookie and don’t count out his methods as he has a lot of money to influence the way things go.
Here in Kansas we have learned that the chief opponents to (and funders of propagands against) natural gas are foreign oil producers and dirty coal and nuclear power advocates. They know that natural gas is under utilized and consequently priced low, so is cheaper energy than petroleum. They also know that because of this low price, development of domestic natural gas (exploration, processing and distribution) is relatively starved for capital, and lags.
Pickens is advocating the investment of a resource that can reduce our dependance on dirty coal, take the atom out of the equation, and free our foreign policy from the consequences of out national dependance on Saudi (Salafist) oil. It will benefit economic policy as well, since we will no longer depend on an overvalued dollar to keep the cost of imported oil low.
Sure, he wants to make money off the deal - he is investing a lot of money in development of the resource. I would rather see him make the money than Peabody and other coal operators, than the “nukular” power industry, and than the Saudis, etc. If I had the money, I could invest in good, non Pickens or Pickens, US natural gas companies and make some money on that investment too.
And, as I have posted above (you have to click the “quote” to see the post) natural gas is very significantly lower in CO2 impact than other hydrocarbon fuels. A strong environmental plus.
@ Herbissimus: The data is available, but not very well organized on the web. A brief summary at EcoBridge ( ( Link redacted ) ) puts it this way:
“Coal emits around 1.7 times as much carbon per unit of energy when burned as does natural gas and 1.25 times as much as oil. Natural gas gives off 50% of the carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, released by coal and 25% less carbon dioxide than oil, for the same amount of energy produced. Coal contains about 80 percent more carbon per unit of energy than gas does, and oil contains about 40 percent more.”
A table “Gasoline Exhaust Products per Vehicle Mile Traveled” at ( Link redacted ) shows CO2 emissions in moles ver VMT for 5 fuels:
* Gasoline 7.90
* Methanol 8.71
* Ethanol 7.40
* CNG 5.64
* LPG 6.00
Note that compressed natural gas is superior in this accounting.
Other comparisons along these lines include:
1 gallon of gasoline = 124,000 Btu
Gasoline carbon content per gallon: 2,421 grams
CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon
CO2 emissions per 1,000,000 Btu = 156.4 lb.
1 gallon of diesel fuel = 139,000 Btu
Diesel carbon content per gallon: 2,778 grams
CO2 emissions from a gallon of diesel = 10.1 kg/gallon = 22.2 pounds/gallon
CO2 emissions per 1,000,000 Btu = 159.7 lb.
1 gallon natural gas = 82.62 cubic feet natural gas = only 84,933.36 Btu. This is 39,000 Btu less in “energy content per gallon” compared to gasoline.
CO2 emissions from a gallon of natural gas = .12059 lb. per c.f. x 82.62 = 9.963 pounds/gallon
117.1 lbs. CO2 /MBtu * .08493336 MBtu/Gal. = 9.946 pounds/gallon
CO2 emissions per 1,000,000 Btu = 117.1 lb.
Of course the apparent precision of these figures is spurious, but the general point of the comparison is pretty clear.
“Natural gas has the highest energy/carbon ratio of any fossil fuel, and thus produces less carbon dioxide per unit of energy.” Wikipedia
That is, unfortunately only the beginning of the story. It addresses the energy content of the fuels used for transportation energy, and the CO2 emissions resulting from that direct source.
It does not, unfortunately, address other important factors in the total fuel cycle, such as the varying efficiency of the engines using the fuel in converting that energy content to transport, and the energy and “CO2 equivalent” costs of producing the fuel.
An interesting paper by the Tesla electric car folks, from 2006, ( Link redacted ) seems a good introduction to the impact of these additional complexities - though I have not read it carefully enough to assess it and do not understand why the authors assign such a low “vehicle efficincy” rating to the natural gas vehicle they report on. Analogous “full fuel cycle” analyses have been done in attempting to assess the carbon effects of ethanol fuels: ( Link redacted )
So Fred. You’re telling me that there is technology out there for a battery to push a big rig 18 wheeler down the interstate because I’ve had a hell of a time finding anything that could even come close. I have seen some hybrids systems for trucks but it is primarily for U.P.S delivery truck type vehicles. If you know of where I could get one of these batteries, please point me in the right direction.
Please let me know if you agree with anything on my post dated Feb. 3rd. Specifically the bridge topic. I’d like to hear more about you’re thoughts on Pickens’ plan without weighing in on the fact that he along with the rest of the true Americans stands to profit off of this. Some obviously more than others.
When I think of all the genious’s out there who…invent medical vaccines that help save peoples’lives…or…someone who who came up with the idea of clean coal…or someone who came up with the electric technology that as you wrote earlier that already exists…are all great ideas, but do you not think that they made hundreds of millions off of those ideas or investments. I would also like to throw in there that I agree that there’s a lot of electric technology available for more compact vehicles, but the people who design that technology are making it hard for people to buy it because of the price they are trying to sell it for, maybe that’s because they want to get rich of of their
ideas and inventions. This whole world evolves around making money, so why is it such a big surprise for someone come up with a plan with validity for use of our domestic energy resources, even if there is profitability in mind. He believes in his plan enough to invest in it. I’m really interested in where I can buy these big rig batteries that you say the technology is already available.
Freight rail is currently the best substitute for big rigs.
Seconding Josh Nelson: Chessie claims, by my recollection, 423 ton miles per gallon of fuel. That is almost certainly through diesel electric locomotives, where the drive wheels are efficiently driven by electricity, and the electricity generated by diesel powered generators, within a self contained locomotive system.
Rail transport is more than 8 times (800%) as fuel efficient as passenger vehicle transport. The average new car or light-duty truck sold in the 2003 model year tipped the scales at 4,021 pounds, breaking the two-ton barrier for the first time since the mid-1970’s. At 25mpg / 2 ton vehicle, that comes to only 50 ton miles per gallon. Since the rail transport figure is for NET ton miles (actual freight carried) and the passenger vehicle figure is for GROSS ton miles, with the passenger “freight” being less than 5% of the total, the disparity is greatly understated.
A chart at oilcrisis dot com slash transport uses gross ton miles across several classes of transport vehicles. It lists the car at 25 to 50 gross ton miles per gallon; I calculate that as equivalent to no more than 2.5 net ton miles per gallon.
The same chart lists 18 wheeler truck transport at 120 to 200 gross ton miles per gallon; and rail transport at 750 gross ton miles per gallon.
I’d submit that we should either stop subsidizing the trucking industry with nearly free highways and other benefits, or at least equalize the subsidies granted to rail transport and highway transport. The loss of our local rail transport system has been an ecological and environmental disaster of the first order, viewed in this light.