Recent news; The Pickens Plan for USA Energy Independence, UPDATED August 4th, 2008

T. Boone Pickens being cast as a right-wing Al Gore

From the Kansas City Star:

Not full-tilt Al Gore, but Pickens has got some ideas

By RHONDA CHRISS LOKEMAN
Creators Syndicate Inc.

Midwesterners are notorious cynics. So you can see why some took a dim view when a Texas oil tycoon came to Kansas to chat up alternative fuels.

Seems like forever that folks were used to hearing Big Oilmen speak of alternative fuels only in terms of pump options, meaning regular, premium and diesel. So when a certain wealthy Texan called on Topeka recently, folks were treated to a horse of a different color.

Good thing the oil tycoon was introduced by someone Kansans know and trust: Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, defender of the small carbon footprint, who warmed up the crowd.

What Kansans saw in T. Boone Pickens was a kind of hybrid oilman. He favors domestic oil exploration, but he’s promoting alternative energy usage, too. He wants people pumped up about natural gas to fuel our cars and about buying hybrids.

He’s talking about wind power, nothing new to anyone who has driven along the Kansas prairie lately. Still, that’s nothing compared with Pickens’ plans to develop a $10 billion wind farm in western Texas. Kansans are becoming famous for their experiments with green living. Tornado-ravaged Greensburg is being rebuilt almost entirely green because of a project supported by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and other environmentalists.

The architect of the “Pickens Plan” is serious about the need for the nation to consider alternative energy sources. No harm in making money and creating jobs in the meantime, he says. Fair enough.

Let’s be clear. Tex Pickens isn’t going full-tilt Al Gore here. He’s not become some ultra-environmentalist who wants us all to reduce, reuse and recycle. He’s for domestic drilling in the outer continental shelf and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The so-called green alternatives he’s hawking, including that wind farm, really come down to supply and demand. Something has to be done, and American ingenuity is such that we can fix this problem ourselves, he believes.


Complete article at: Kansas City Star article on T. Boone Pickens natural gas energy plan



From the Dallas Morning Herald

T. Boone Pickens' energy plan strikes chord with both political parties

July 31, 2008

By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – T. Boone Pickens has known many reputations during his 80 years: oilman, corporate raider and hard-core Republican partisan.

But in the space of a month, his image has grown more public-spirited, as lawmakers from both parties warm to the ideas of the nation's energy oracle, picking bits of his speeches that seem to fit their message.
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Republicans eager to force votes on new exploration have emphasized Mr. Pickens' support for offshore drilling.

Democrats anxious to move beyond petroleum have invoked Mr. Pickens' renewable energy gospel.

"It's not Al Gore" urging the country to move away from oil, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday. "It's T. Boone Pickens, different political party, different persuasion than Al, saying we've got to move to renewables."

Mr. Pickens has put $58 million into an advertising campaign that urges the country to adopt wind power and natural gas – the focus of his own investments – as replacements for foreign oil.

He's made a quick impact, judging by the frequency with which legislators quote him.

Yet he might be disappointed if he were to measure the results of his effort by recent events.

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a big tax bill that would have extended a tax credit on which wind developers rely for another year. The measure is unlikely to pass before the Senate leaves for its August recess, according to lawmakers and lobbyists.

Mr. Pickens has made the valuable tax credit a centerpiece of his plan, saying it should be extended for a decade.

The credit amounts to about one-third of a wind farm's construction costs, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Most projects wouldn't make money without it, according to the trade group.

But the parties can't agree on how to renew it.



Full article at:

Dallas News story on The Pickens Plan



Washington Times editorial on the Pickens Plan:

Monday, July 28, 2008

EDITORIAL: When Pickens speaks

A great many listen. That's a good thing. T. Boone Pickens is nothing if not an aggressive innovator, and the country needs some real energy innovation right now. Last week, the Texas oil billionaire, "Swiftboat" funder and now windpower guru, took to Washington to push his "Plan." The goal is an America free of its dependency on foreign oil. The prime method would be a network of wind turbines stretching from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota that frees up natural gas for auto fuel conversion.

How realistic is the Pickens Plan? The sheer ambition is itself telling, as are some rather Pickensian unrealities on gas. There are also lingering questions about his intent. But the proposal is surely worth Washington's attention and that of American industry.

Mr. Pickens' unprecedented turbine network comes in at $1 trillion, to be borne largely by the private sector plus another $200 billion for the power-transport infrastructure. The envisioned network could meet 20 percent of the country's electricity needs if Mr. Pickens' numbers are correct (compared to wind's less than 1 percent of total U.S. output today). Once in operation, the United States could then shift its natural-gas consumption, presently 22 percent of U.S. electrical generation, to fuels for transportation. If this sounds like a staggering investment of money in technologies not yet very market-competitive, it is. But a one-time $1.2 trillion compares favorably to the $700 billion each year, in perpetuity, in foreign-oil payments if today's prices persist. This is not even counting higher future demand. So speaks Mr. Pickens, and his plan deserves discourse in the public and private sectors.

Of course, there are catches. Significant tax credits came up during Mr. Pickens' congressional testimony. This means the jazzy "private sector investment" assurances are tempered by real, unknown and probably significant budgetary impacts. Another subject of interest is Mr. Pickens' apparent desire to bring much more Canadian natural gas across the border. Someone should tell the Canadians, who until now have made other plans for a most prized natural resource. Then there are the oilman's investments in wind power. These can be read either as the tycoon putting his money where his mouth is or gearing up for a big future profit.

At minimum, it is good to see an oil magnate thinking big thoughts about petroleum overdependency. All the real alternatives - nuclear, natural gas, wind and more - should be on the table. For that reason it is disappointing that Mr. Pickens is not beating the drum more loudly on nuclear energy. Mr. Pickens says he is for all the energy options. That is well and good. But why not expend a comparable effort to push this clean and efficient technology? While the public is still quite wary about nuclear energy, Mr. Pickens is perhaps betting that politics will continue to quash it out of fear.



From the Los Angeles Times Opinion page:


A Boone for California?

T. Boone Pickens has given to California Proposition 10, a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot that would authorize the sale of $5 billion in bonds to provide rebates to buyers of hybrids and other alternative-fuel cars. What do you get the Texas oilman who has everything? Why, a $5 billion ballot measure, of course.

Perhaps that’s unfair. Knowing that it’s better to give than to receive, T. Boone Pickens has given to California Proposition 10, a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot that would authorize the sale of $5 billion in bonds to provide rebates to buyers of hybrids and other alternative-fuel cars. I mean, he spent $3.25 million of his own money just to get this clean-energy measure on the ballot. He’s now on a nationwide campaign to get Americans to give up their gasoline habit and to get their government to invest in alternative energy. You may have seen his TV commercials, or his Pickens Plan website.

But back to Proposition 10, and what to do with all that bond money. Hey, how about handing out rebates to cities and counties to buy fleets of -- oh, I don’t know, I'm just thinking out loud here -- natural-gas vehicles? I mean, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has a huge network of natural gas fuel stations around the country, so there’s already a refueling infrastructure in place. Gee, I wonder who owns Clean Energy Fuels. Let's look that up…. Why, look here! It's owned by T. Boone Pickens! What a coincidence!

The Contra Costa Times' Steve Harmon has the story. He reports on critics angry over Pickens' "brazen attempt to get Californians to foot the bill" for a measure that will cost them and their descendants $9.8 million billion dollars, including interest, over the next 30 years. Harmon also notes that Proposition 10's campaign manager, Marty Wilson, is was* Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief fundraiser. Another amazing coincidence.

Oh, did I forget to mention that Pickens has been in the ballot measure biz before? As The Times' David Zahniser detailed in this Feb. 1 story, Pickens threw in $150,000 to help Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pass his successful ballot measure to broaden (and shrink) the city telephone tax. At the same time, Clean Energy Fuels was backing Villaraigosa's plan to convert all trucks at the Port of Los Angeles to natural gas.

So is it all a horrible idea? Californians may be OK with paying to get more alternative energy vehicles off the road and more poison and carbon out of the air. The Times' David Lazarus picked apart the Pickens Plan in a column earlier this month, and although Proposition 10 is not discussed, Lazarus correctly points out that what's good for America does not become suddenly bad merely because a rich guy might profit from it.

But people already are back-ordering Priuses, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a line forming for the Chevy Volt longer than the one I waited in for Zeppelin tickets outside the Ticketron at the Boyle Heights Sears in 1977. Do taxpayers really have to underwrite alt-vehicle sales?

A mighty tip of the hat to Joe Mathews and his Blockbuster Democracy blog – an indispensable resource for those who follow the world of ballot measures.

*Marty Wilson was Schwarzenegger's chief fundraiser until about a year ago.


More browsing:

The Pickens Plan website analysis and links

New York Times Interview with T. Boone Pickens

Washington Post article on T. Boone Pickens USA Energy Plan

Businessweek article on The Pickens Plan

Money.CNN.com story on The Pickens Plan

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