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So how come when T. Boone Pickens starts spouting "lefty" ideas like wind power all of a sudden the right wing/Republicans/free marketeers can't wait to rip him?
T. Boone no more brought down Gulf (it's a free market remember, if you fail it's your own fault) than I brought down the airlines and American car manufacturers by refusing to buy their crappy products.
To those of you touting shale on the western slope and the overthrust. My recollection is that it takes a LOT OF WATER, to extract the usable hydrocarbons from it. Water is something that is not in great abundance out here (CO) and it's expensive to pump.
golfgod
Agree on all points. They are constantly improving methods to extract the oil from the shale using ever less water in the process. Federal R&D dollars to our great universities (like MIT, Stanford, CalTech, TexasTech and others) could go a long way to cracking the nut on some of these technologies, to include battery, wind, solar and other technologies.
The "audacity of alternative vision" - Senator Obama?
Guess again.
"Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn't happen," Pickens says. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil?"
"Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.
....." he's offering an audacious alternative vision -- generate enough wind so that America no longer needs to use natural gas to generate electricity, and then use that gas instead to power up to one-third of our vehicle fleet with compressed natural gas (CNG).
The conversion is clearly feasible. CNG cars are already normal in countries like Argentina, where they cost no more than conventional models. The barriers in the U.S. have been the resistance of the major oil companies and that we would need to install CNG pumps at service stations. But many fleets already burn the fuel, which is much cleaner, and emits about one-third less carbon than gasoline. And CNG now has another advantage: It costs about half as much as gasoline does. If we were to convert any significant part of the U.S. fleet, the resulting decline in world oil demand would actually reduce oil prices, potentially sharply. It's probably the only short-term (2-3 year) strategy that might."
Oops, joined this a little late. Whatever Pickens' motivation, he seems to make sense. In light of the recent political posturing over drilling, it seems like we should be focusing on what we can do to bridge the gap and transition as smoothly as possible to a new energy source.
The Shell Oil Company is sponsoring a Le Mans prototype racecar powered by diesel fuel formulated from Natural Gas. Diesel Oil already has an existing distribution system and burns far more efficiently than compressed Natural Gas. Judging by the performance of the Audi R-10 clean diesel technology has come a long way since the 80's VW diesel Rabbits.
I addition to switching most of our automobile fleet to diesel I think we should replace our coal fired (using the same land and electrical facilities) with high temperature gas cooled nuclear fission steam generators. We should not be burning oil or gas to generate electricity because it is an inappropriate use of increasingly scarce unrenewable resources.
Anybody seen the T Boone Pickens energy blurb recently on TV? Is he right, that energy should be the #1 problem to address amongst our politicians? He said we are exporting over $700-Billion a year to foreign countries...the largest annual movement of wealth out of a country in world history, and if we don't fix that soon, we are shortly "gonna be history" as a country. That we should be using ALL possible sources of energy to help us through this crisis...not ruling out any because of special interest groups. That we should be drilling for oil everywhere in our country....AND developing wind, solar, and nuclear. All of the above. What do you think?
I saw him last night BRILLIANT just brilliant he is for alternate energy but at same time lives in real world not Al Gores lala land.
He has used billions for windmill energy so he practices what he preaches but realizes we are still need to dig or we will regret it .
Common sense guy . To bad he isnt running things
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Oilman T Boone Pickens Energy Plan For The Next President
The "audacity of alternative vision" - Senator Obama?
