Boone Pickens Energy Plan Part 2

[jhol1177]

One nuclear energy proponent said about Hydrogen/Oxygen HHO SOLAR, "You can't kill enemies with a squirt gun. It took war motivation to deveolpe gas oil nukes... fasc dscn

[jhol1177]

A great man of the free world working to save America and Americans! Wonderful thing.

[OperationCrossroad]

The U.S. is importing 70% of the oil required to run its economy. Switching to natural gas for transportation wouldn't solve anything since the U.S. is NOT self-sufficient when it comes to natural gas. This means that a big part of his plan would be to switch from importing a lot of oil to importing a lot of natural gas... (?) If I got this wrong, please let me know what I am missing.

[brasswhombat]

did you not watch the whole video? 98% of the natural gas used in homes is domestic, meaning only 2% is imported which produces 22% of the US's energy. Pickens wants to get wind energy up to 22% to replace natural gas which will be used pretty much exclusively for transportation fuels.

[milofonbil]

I think that unfortunately wind, solar-thermal, PV, geothermal, all need to be federally subsidized like Coal, Oil and Nuclear Power companies are federally subsidized.

[jimbol51]

Government subsidized our dependence on fossil fuels, so it only makes logical sense that they must wean us off that dependence by subsidizing the new alternative energy technologies. The problem is the government needs to wean itself off the financial incentives these old energy industries keep enticing them with-some of the old energy lobbyists still have alot of cash on hand (think record oil profits).

[milofonbil]

Jimbol51, I agree. The big oil companies and the nuclear industry is being heavily subsidized by the Federal government. And, yes, the lobbyists make sure they keep those incentives. But in order to push for energy independence, we need more renewables. Many renewables lost their subsidies or never had them such as damless hydro, geothermal, solar-thermal, solar, and wind.

[kurtscash]

wrong , First Solar, stock synbol FSLR has gone thru the roof because its making a profit world wide without government subsidies.

Hemp could replace a large portion, NaturalGas is already working,,, KEEP LOOKING AND JOIN PICKENSPLANdotCOM

[milofonbil]

I think that unfortunately wind, solar-thermal, PV, geothermal, all need to be federally subsidized like Coal, Oil and Nuclear Power companies are federal he other to go faster.

[milofonbil]

Boone's strategy is clear - substitute foreign oil consumption with natural gas. Substitute natural gap power plants with wind farms.

Some tactics that fall out of this:

1)Build lots of wind farms

2)Get power companies to close old gas-powered electric plants to free-up NG for cars

3)Get power companies to use gas for load-following rather than base load

4)Sell bi-fuel cars CNG and gasoline

5)Convert cars to run off of CNG and gas

6)Sell CNG at gas stations

7)Sell home compressors for NG

[milofonbil]

(con't)

8)Invest into the national electric grid

There are a couple of areas where the market won't execute the tactics on its own:

2)Power companies have a lot of CapEX invested in their plants. How do they get shut down to free up the natural gas for cars?

8)Who will pay for the infrastructure investments to build-up the electric grid?

Electric motors are very efficient Why not push development of electric cars and battery technology (electric cars are not limited by Carnot cycle)

[shawnmhoward]

Great points. I'm all for the electric car. Clean wind power and PV's need to be federally subsidized. When is that going to happen, though? I would LOVE it to happen, but isn't the reality that by the time it finally happens it will be too late? From everything that I've studied and the research that is out there, it's already too late. Now we just have to make it as good as we can and suffer through as best we can. Not to be pragmatic. Just depressed by this ostrich-like world.

[joeusa1776]

I'm all about reducing foreign oil consumption! In fact, why stop there, let's keep working to toatally eliminate the requirements of oil as an energy source..period!...And all others forms of energy that are not renewable.

Get involved at: joeusa(dot)yuku(dot)com

-Joe

[milofonbil]

Nuclear power is not renewable either. Also, If we were really serious about eliminating dependence on foreign sources of energy, then we should take a close look at nuclear power too. Today, we import 84% of our uranium from countries like Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada. The majority of the rest is coming from the downblending of highly enriched uranium from nuclear weapons. Most people don't know that peak uranium will happen fairly soon too.

[shawnmhoward]

I agree with this great visionary; however, one gets the feeling that his driving force is strictly the monetary health of the economy at hand. An economy that is driven by special interest contracts that have been forged with these nations that are bilking us out of our money. Drill oil on the continental shelf? Energy production that produces some materials so dangerous that that they will require constant vigilance by future generations? Clean power yes, environemental destruction, NO.

[theteef]

the only way people are going to accept this plan is if it has some economic benefit which this does. Clean power is a welcome after-product of this plan.

[milofonbil]

Then you should absolutely be against nuclear power = environmental destruction

1)Highly toxic and radioactive wastes around for hundreds of thousands of years

2)Mining - groundwater contamination, acids, radon gas

3)Dirty mining tailing ponds, groundwater contamination, radon gas

4)Milling and refining, solvents, acids, radon gas

5)Enrichment - CFCs

6)Reprocessing(also recycling) is extremely dirty = acids, toxic heavy metals, radioactive sludge

[cds10690]

got to love this.. so when will we start? the sooner the better!

[NaturalGasInvesting]

Don't say "sooner"......Boone backs Oklahoma State. LOL!

[BAMAASS]

t boone pickens= trailblazer. I wish I could invest in his company, but minimum investment is 5 million bucks!

[trublu97]

mesa trust sells as a regular stock..

[ekinard1]

The guy is such a visionary. Just this past week in the Dallas Morning News was an article about Houston utilities trying to limit transmission. The Houston utilities want all the new clean wind electricity from West Texas to go to Dallas or San Antonio. Bring it on with the clean electricity. All the old nasty stuff is going to be turned off around Dallas eventually. The 10,000 megawatts of new power he mentions are coming. How many dirty plants will have to turn off around Dallas? Clean ahhh.