Commentary on T Boone Pickens' wind and solar comercial

[truelyfine]

@chuckyko Well, Pickens didn't actually go through with the wind turbines, but he's pushing ahead with natural gas promotion....

[notsolaxboy132]

Mr. Pickens is advocating an extremely detailed, practical, and complete (by your standard) approach to getting us of foreign oil. I say this because in fact, his plan will eventually rid our country of carbon emissions, but for now, a battery will not move an 18 wheeler and that is what the natural gas is for. Furthermore, he is building the largest wind farm in the world and fervently advocates for solar to be explored and implemented into use as well. His number one concern is getting America

[notsolaxboy132]

off of foreign oil which is costing our country over $600billion/yr to nations that are unfriendly to us. Your #1 concern should be America. Going green is inherently a part of the process, because natural gas is a limited resource and wind, solar, nuclear ect. will one day have to replace it. But for now, natural gas is cheap, it's abundant, it's clean, and it's American! I'm sorry. I just get tired of people finding problems with the Pickens Plan. It will save this country!

[truelyfine]

Yes, natural gas will partly reduce CO2 emissions. No he is not building the world's largest wind farm. I believe he gave up most of his Texas aspirations when Texas pulled tax subsidies for power lines. For wind installation size he is competing with China and Europe. My #1 concern is humanity - expressed as CO2 levels of less than 350 ppm. Don't have a problem with Pickens plan. Just aiming beyond it. Need to tax oil imports - heavily- for floor solar price support.

[notsolaxboy132]

Natural gas will significantly lower CO2 emissions and his wind farm will set a precedent for reusable energy farms in the great planes region while also helping catalyze the production of the power grid. Yes, his wind farm (which will be the largest in the world) has been postponed a year or so due to the recession. But do not be so quick to claim that his plan is incomplete, because videos like this hurt the ethos of very credible people like Boone Pickens. Your plan is incomplete. It does not

[notsolaxboy132]

address the current problem that the technology for electricity is not here yet to move 18 wheelers. If you are so concerned about CO2 emissions, you should be exalting Boone Pickens and his plan, because it is the most practical and realistic approach to reaching your goal of a CO2 free country. Your aim is too far beyond what's doable. Taxing oil imports will further cripple our economy. Let natural gas be the bridge to wind, solar, nuclear, ect. It is the only way to wane us off foreign oil

[NewYorkViolets]

thanks for your commentary. very thoughtful and informative. takle home message: less fossil fuel use and switch to electric cars, yeah?

thanks, Alexander

Peace Corps Volunteer, Guatemala

[truelyfine]

I worked with a fellow 25 years ago who converted his box van to run on propane. I suppose you could do that for your SUV today with CNG. With or without Pickens.

The statistics for urban automobiles seem to be that we drive less than 40 miles a day, alone.

Yes we need a national electrical grid, big enough to be stable and able to send power alternately in each direction depending on the time of day or season of the year. This would allow distributed wind and solar electricity generation.

[josetjack]

Nice vid, but I think that Mr. Pickens was talking about converting to natural gas in large trucks. Rest of it was right on.

[natemoore]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! That's man-made global warming in a nutshell.

[truelyfine]

The man behind the curtain is the one that says 'we must drill, now, at any cost and everywhere' and refuses to discuss the social merits of each approach.

What the resource companies have an issue with is changing business models if our energy supply (not oil or coal supplies) change to something more decentralized.

As for global warming, the IPCC CONSENSUS reports were not cobbled together by individuals but agreed to as CONSERVATIVE descriptions of the worldwide MEASURED data.

[natemoore]

IPCC is a U.N. political body. I'm surprised that a grown man would be so unquestioningly loyal to such a corrupt organization.

You have a hard-on for this "scientific consensus" and I'm sure you believe "the science is settled." Throughout the history of science, it has always been the minority skeptic to disprove the majority "consensus."

This shit isn't going to fly.

[truelyfine]

You misunderstand the history of science. It is not the skeptic who overthrows a widely held theory but the insightful experimenter or theoretician who brings new data, or a new understanding of the data, to the table.

As for being corrupt, the US was a heavy part of the IPCC committee, and it was a consensus position.

[natemoore]

Pickens apparently isn't a member of the Church of Global Warming. While fools like you whine about our carbon footprints--the most egregious sin in the Green religion--the rest of us will go about solving the real problem: being held hostage by foreign powers who hate us and want to destroy us.

Your most divine revelation, called the "Mann Hockey Stick Graph," has been shown to be an unreliable statistical contrivance. Yet your faith is stronger than those who seek 72 virgins.

[truelyfine]

Disappearing old polar ice caps, increased melt rates in Greenland, the shift of the jet stream 120 miles north are measured empirical facts.

As for the hockey stick temperature vs time graph, my son is reading How to Lie With Statistics for a math course, so we agree that data with different periods, uncertainties, and baselines can be contrived. The MEASURED data here is overwhelming.

Russia in Georgia is to control gas pipelines in Asia. Let's get off of oil and gas not shift the source.

[natemoore]

Certainly you know that the Antarctic ice cap is growing in thickness, and the Arctic ice cap, as of March 08, was back to the same size as it was in '98.

Re. Mann Hockey Stick, the smoking gun is that the IPCC dropped it from it's AR's. That's like the Pope saying Jesus' boned have been found.

Other anecdotal evidence against AGW (since you apparently like anecdotal evidence) it's getting colder where I live here in NW Florida. Mid-July felt like fall for several days. Last winter, COLD!!!!!!

[truelyfine]

A large piece of the Antarctic ice shelf split off - warmed from the ocean. Antarctic weather has changed - it started snowing in normally dessert areas (ice build up). Too warm or too cold the penguins are dying because the weather patterns have shifted the food supply.

Lack of a hockey stick graph indicates different data sets, not that a graph is wrong.

In July, in Washington DC we were cooking. 90+ F. Storms blew the hot air north. Cold? No. Florida winters rarely go below freezing.

[natemoore]

Antarctic ice broke off? Shit! The next thing you'll be telling me is that the leaves are falling off the trees! Antarctic peninsula has warmed but overall its colder with increasing ice mass. Fact.

Listen to your denial. Mann cherry picked his proxies to arrive at the conclusion he wanted. The midieval warm period also mysteriously disappeared in his graph.

Summers are always hot. Read civil war letters. But 19 degrees in NW Florida for days on end last winter? Snow in Mexico. Come on!

[mykol13v]

Please don't measure during the Summer months tho, and compare them with the winter months. Not a valid test. Also, Russia disconnected many sensors in the artic due to cost. You must remove these from the calculations completely. And, when measuring sensors, make sure the ones being used are actually valid condition sensors. We found many in the US being too close to building, air conditioners, highways, airports, electrical interference. Use only certified sensors, please. Ice caps, next.

[truelyfine]

I expect these measurement process issues have been taken into account.

In addition there are more global processes that reflect temperature without being dependent on human monitoring, such as snow pack measurements and satellite measurements with ground truthing.

[faylow105]

Raise taxes on cars with bad mileage? Just who do you think that hurts. The POOR people who are struggling to make it to work every day and can't afford a green car. They eat badly because it's cheap, they drive old cars because they are cheap. Average folks just want their paychecks to make it to the weekend. And more taxes will kill our already bad economy! But thank god your c.footprint is much smaller & daintier. Be sure and tell that to the bankruptcy judge while your living on the street.

[truelyfine]

Your views are so narrow and short sighted, and prevalent in 'right wing' politics. There is a larger world out there beyond your concern about your old car.

Old cars are replaced when they break down. Change that economics equation by adding a tax for the crap they put out. Even poor people will gravitate to more efficient vehicles. Buy scrap the worst 5% of vehicles and you get rid of proportionately more emissions than by replacing Honda Civics. It helps society. Heard of that entity?

[truelyfine]

Sorry for the large swath of comments all in one place. I replied to each of the comments others made and YouTube/Google grouped everything together. Perhaps you can read them and match them as you read the external comments.

Truelyfine

[truelyfine]

A faster transition occurs if you get rid of ALL the imported hydrocarbons, versus a smaller fraction (~40%) by converting only a part of the generating plant into renewable sources.

[nicholasiacona]

Let's not miss the Big Picture message from T. Boone Pickens here: that America--as a cheap-oil based society developed over that past 110 years--has outsourced much of our energy resources (nowadays often to countries/cultures which are enemies). And not only do we get our oil from enemy countries, many also hold our financial debt, too (or their allies). So, we're vulnerable, on many fronts. So, once the transition from the Oil Era to the Clean energy Era is fully made, Climate Change abates.

[eddietauf]

Manufacturing conversion is necessary 4 any move away from gas powered vehicles so ur logic in this regard is a wash. Further how do u produce the electicity 4 cars? If currently 50% of it is from coal ur model to increase use of electricity is unsustainable and certainly doesn't do much of anything to reduce the carbon footprint. Boone Pickens IMHO is really on to something worth some serious examination. Doesn't solve all the problem but gets much further down the road than anything else.

[truelyfine]

Agreed, new cars will need to be newly designed. But going all electric means no vehicle emissions. Cars are less efficient than fixed generators. Congressional testimony last month indicates that electric vehicles will be recharged at night when electricity consumption is way down. TBP addresses the supply of energy because he controls the wind turbines he buys and builds, and he does some arm waving on the vehicle side, since he favors oil and natural gas, as his source of a fortune.

[eddietauf]

Furthering point TBP's approach would seem 2 produce a faster & deeper reduction in emissions / oil consumption. Conversation of commerical vehicles (trucks,vans,buses etc.) 2 electric power appears further away than conversion to NG fuel. I don't think electric cars should be completely nixed. Beauty of TBP plan is that is complementary 2ur approache while still serving the same goal and allowing for it to be achieved more efficiently.

[smiskie]

I think Pickens is just addressing immediate energy needs of the U.S. I don't think his agenda is necessarily to address technological changes like plug in hybrid cars. He's an oil man, not an auto maker.

[truelyfine]

Absolutely, he's attacking the supply side of the problem. What we do with more stable electricity prices (note the multiyear fixed rate contracts wind turbines usually fill) is up to the greater society.

[mb4lunch]

Here's a thought....Let's stop having babies!!!

[truelyfine]

I recently listened to Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb) recommend that the carrying capacity of the earth is about 3 billion people, and that going to 1 or 2 children would get us there eventually. Certainly non carbon releasing energy would help us survive more comfortably.

[utube9000]

Tell it to the Third World. Ehrlich and his fellow Jews did incredible damage to Western society by advocating lower birth rates. Only white women listened - the rest of the world kept breeding like rabbits.

Here's my plan: 1) Kick out all the illegals.

2) White people start reproducing at a SUSTAINABLE level (2.5 kids per woman)

3) Shut off all aid to Mexico, Africa, etc until they bring their population levels down.

4) Develop alternative fuels, become energy efficient.

[truelyfine]

Bite your tongue racist. Specific religious delusions are meaningless. Your implied birthrates are wrong.

1) Not feasible, too many. Accommodate them.

2) Educated women limit their fertility, due to a higher chance their offspring will survive and economics. Europeans got there first. India and China are following.

3) If the economy in Mexico were improved, they wouldn't come north.

4) Harness solar energy. Grow energy crops. Insulate. Make efficient cars. Put human knowledge online.

[utube9000]

trulyfine-

1) Wrong, kicking out ALL illegals is 100% feasible. I could do it MYSELF with 100 good men. Obviously you know nothing of American resolve, bravery and ingenuity.

2) Exactly, it's called r-K theory, read Phillipe Rushton.

3) True - they also would come North if we didn't let them

4) Agreed.

[PARKEREAL]

i got a thought let the cia bring drugs to the black and mexican areas put them in jail 4 selling dope during their breeding years and inject some of them with aids. oh shit your goverment already does that

[tubamaxima]

Even T.Boone Pickens realizes that natural gas is only an interim step to total freedom. Wind is always, wind is free. T.Boone Pickens is a billionaire, he could care about making even more money. He cares about the USA.

Half of something is better than a whole of nothing. Maybe the 300 billion dollars we would save lining the pockets of Islamic extremists that hate us, could be used to install solar panels all over the place.

[truelyfine]

$700 B spent on this war would have bought about 350 GWatt of wind capability (TBP is paying $2B for 1 GW) which would nearly meet the 450 GW the CIA web page says we use (4E15 WH/365/24 =4.5E11 W). And on top of it all we would not be buying world oil for electricity generation. (Okay there is the issue of the $500 B transsmission line enhancement that we would also need).

[ohdaysoo]

Forgot to mention: we also burn coal.

[truelyfine]

Yes, and natural gas puts out some fraction (TBP implies about 60%) of the emissions of burning coal. Go renewable and drop that to 0%.

[ohdaysoo]

How is electricity produced? Burn oil, boil water, then the steam, moves generators.

[truelyfine]

The is Kelvin's thermal cycle, with a working fluid going between two reservoirs of different temperatures, extracting part of the energy difference with each transition (also this way with geothermal and nuclear). The other way is through photovoltaic processes where light kicks electrons free in a substrate, which are then recirculated to capture their energy. A third way is wind going past vanes which move mechanically capturing part of the energy and using it to drive a generator.

[truelyfine]

We have a choice in how we generate electricity - renewables don't spew emissions. We have a choice in how we drive. Since we have to create new technology to go with either NG or plug-in hybrids or battery powered cars - let's get the maximum bang for our effort and skip the partial hydrocarbon stage of NG from the start of our process. The 'market' is so large (~15 M cars per year in the US) that we could make all sorts and government could tax more for those that have worse emissions.

[SierraM363]

How about we build some viable electrical cars first.

8 million natural gas cars in the world right now.

How long do we have to wait for electrical?

I like Boones's plan better.

[truelyfine]

TBP's plan is a small piece of the necessary actions we need to take. I went and saw Al Gore give his speech on 10 year electrification with renewable sources - after I posted this. He filled in the rest of the picture. Replace all hydrocarbon energy sources with renewables, and then use battery power (oor whatever portable energy storage is available) to modify the fleet and don't bring back more hydrocarbon emissions. A larger CO2 emission reduction.

[bigpimp2135]

with all due respect....your a dumbass.

If you were smarter than t boone, than you would at least be a millionaire if not a billionaire.

[truelyfine]

No, I've made millions for other people in my work, but a tendency towards ADHD makes it hard to be the boss and handle the organizational details. Besides T. Boone Pickens exhibits a ruthlessness I don't share.

I'm pointing out that TBP is looking at this through an oilman's eyes. I'm looking at it through a sense of societal benefits.

[TejasShane]

I understand what you're saying, but T. Boone Pickens is not saying CNG for transportation is a long term fix. He is only saying it is a temporary measure until we get other technologies up and running like electric cars. Battery technology is not quite there yet, it works in limited trials and laboratory experiments but batteries can't handle consumer use (or abuse) on a mass scale at this time and batteries are way more expensive at this time.

[truelyfine]

We have a choice in how we generate electricity - renewables don't spew emissions. We have a choice in how we drive. Since we have to create new technology to go with either NG or plug-in hybrids or battery powered cars - let's get the maximum bang for our effort and skip the partial hydrocarbon stage of NG from the start of our process. The 'market' is so large (~15 M cars per year in the US) that we could make all sorts and government could tax more for those that have worse emissions.

[FogerRox]

Hey pal, peak oil is here, peak coal 2050, peak nat gas 2020. Nat gas is not a long term solution.

[truelyfine]

I don't know when peak anything is. I do know that the price is on a upward curve and the hazards of CO2 emissions are on an even faster upward curve and to avoid both of these we need to move to renewable energy sources and storage.

[tallflguy]

Drill here, Drill now Save Money!

[truelyfine]

Yes, let the oil companies drill in the millions of square miles they now hold rights to but don't exploit - or give up those rights to someone else who wants them. What? They don't have the drilling equipment ready to go? Well then stop crying about lost opportunity from unheld leases.

[Odziz]

I totally agree, electric cars are the only solution.

Micro generation usin wind and solar at home is the answer, so what you don't use can go back into the grid.

[cpscsoccer13]

ELECTRIC CARS ARE NOT THE SOLUTION!!! You poeple dont realize more than 50% of the country runs on coal, which produces more emissions than oil and gas. Ever heard of the black lung? This guy here talks about having a hard time switching cars to natural gas, the same principle has to be applied to electric cars.

[truelyfine]

Quantity is coupled with efficiency, and a vehicle will be less efficient than a stationary generator. All new vehicle technologies will be hard to get into, but what is our goal as a society? I say pay the price up front and go renewable electric.

[truelyfine]

We have a choice in how we generate electricity - renewables don't spew emissions. We have a choice in how we drive. Since we have to create new technology to go with either NG or plug-in hybrids or battery powered cars - let's get the maximum bang for our effort and skip the partial hydrocarbon stage of NG from the start of our process. The 'market' is so large (~15 M cars per year in the US) that we could make all sorts and government could tax more for those that have worse emissions.