T. Boone Pickens has a plan for energy independence in the United States and he’s putting his money where his mouth is to promote it.  The Billionaire Texas Oil Man and investor has been one of the loudest voices warning of peak oil for years now, but now he’s taking his push for alternative sources of energy for the USA a step further with Pickens Plan. 

Pickens’ numbers cannot be disputed (And why would we?  We’re arguing for the same thing on here every day.).  The United States now imports 70% of its oil - up from a mere 24% in 1970.  At today’s prices we are currently sending $700 Billion dollars overseas for the oil we need to run our economy, which is four times the annual cost of the Iraq War.  Over the next ten years the projected cost for the oil we will import at present levels will be $10 Trillion, which will be the largest transfer of wealth in human history. 

So what’s Pickens Plan?  The majority of it involves greater investment and usage of wind power in the United States.  Pickens calls the US “The Saudi Arabia of Wind Power” with the belt stretching from Texas to North Dakota yielding the highest average wind speeds on the planet.  However, according to the plan the utilization of this territory for energy will only garner 20% of the electricity needs of the United States.  This is certainly nothing to scoff at, but we’re going to need to make up the rest of that number somewhere, and that somewhere isn’t exactly clear in the plan.  Pickens envisions with the amount of energy produced by wind we can divert a significant amount of natural gas formerly used to power electricity generation to use in automobiles that run off the substance.  He reasons we have greater access to natural gas in the United States, it’s a cheaper fuel and that there are major discoveries of it being made right now.   

I’m happy to see T. Boone Pickens advocating greater reliance on windpower in the United States.  Pickens is undeniably a capitalist with a great interest in the development of wind power, as reported here previously. But so what? It will take business leaders like him to push the alternative energy industry where it needs to go.  I would however like to see him advocate both conservation and solar power in his plan.  But overall I have to say this is a very positive step in the right direction in promoting alternative energy in this country.  I’m blogging from Charleston, West Virginia today where I saw an television commercial about Pickens Plan for the first time advertising on a local station.  I have to say I was pretty excited to see things we’ve been talking about on this blog for a while getting televised media exposure in a rural area. 

You can takepart by checking out the online community for alternative energy and reduced dependence on foreign oil taking shape at Pickens Plan.

LINKS:

TakePart: Big Oil Man Moving Into Wind Power

US News & World Report: Money & Business: Pickens Plan

Business Plan: The Pickens Plan: The Oracle of Oil Has Spoken