No Wind, Plenty of Gas in Updated Pickens Plan
T. Boone Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman, today updated the presentation for his Pickens Plan to get the country off of foreign oil. The updated plan focuses almost entirely on natural gas, and makes no mention of the wind power he also peddled two years ago.
Using his signature whiteboard, Pickens argued that the country's 8 million 18-wheeler trucks were the key to cutting the country's oil imports from OPEC (5 million barrels per day) in half. The trucks, which currently run on diesel, could be converted to natural gas in seven years, he said.
If we don ...
Comments (6)
wentlandt
While he may have uploaded a new whiteboard presentation to Youtube, that's essentially the same pitch he delivered at TTU a few months back. He touched lightly on wind energy, but really hammered the natural gas dog-&-pony show.
Having grown up with the Simpsons, it's hard for me to trust a billionaire.
twilner
Have the author and headline writer perhaps over-egged this pudding a bit? His updated whiteboard video does not mention wind, it's true. But if you click "the plan" on his site, you get this:
"The Pickens Plan.
There are several pillars to the Pickens Plan:
* Create millions of new jobs by building out the capacity to generate up to 22 percent of our electricity from wind"
I.e., wind is still point #1. So how is wind "not in the plan"? Please let me know if I'm missing something obvious.
ngs1941
Guess who would benefit from a changeover to natural gas? Answer - The guy who owns huge holdings in natural gas and his name rhymes with "Chickens." The last snake oil salesman with hokey information techniques -- H. Ross Perot -- wasn't trying to line his own pockets because he'd already made qazillions from his deals with Blue Cross Blue Shield and various State health departments. Do a little digging into Pickens' motivation and after you get past an inch of "patriotism," you will find a bottomless pit of greed. Bottom line: natural gas is a fossil fuel and it is NOT emission-free. Wake up, Texas Tribune, and put your reporter hat on.
twilner
Since I criticized the Tribune on one front I feel I should defend them on this one. ngs1941, while you may argue that the TT should write a piece exposing the problems with natural gas (and for all I know, they have - I haven't checked the archive), this clearly isn't that kind of piece. Readers can't demand that every piece they read goes into every aspect of a story, or there would never be any breaking news stories, and all pieces would be about 5,000 words long.
ngs1941
twilner misunderstood my point. The TT should expose the bottomless mendacity of T. B. Pickens. His "Plan" would stuff his pockets with natural gas profits and that is THE point. The Texas Tribune should explore Pickens' motivation. That is the _real_ story in the "Pickens Plan." Expose the "Plan" for what it is and stop writing about it as if it was a real expression of public policy. Pickens wraps himself in the flag and I remember that Dr. Samuel Johnson said that "Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels."
Chris Eddleman
This is just one of 50 billionaires in this country who are trying to profit from the hard work of the middle class , this guy changes his mind as fast as the stock market , when are Americans going to wake up and start involving themselves in the process of bring about true change for all people ? Forget about linning the pockets of the rich