Brian Wang Critiques Pickens' Energy Plan

Energy expert and futurist Brian Wang explains why T. Boone Pickens' plan for sustainable wind energy is fundamentally flawed.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• T.
• Boone
• Pickens
• energy
• brian
• wang
• environment
• alternative
• wind
• farm
• power
• pickens
• plan

[zassounotsukushi]

In Pickens' defense, he is pretty old and will thus die relatively soon, so it doesn't really matter if he makes more money. Greater profits in his business ventures will have virtually no connection with his future consumption - so why does he want to promote this?

I think that we're all really striving for the same thing, and the problem looks like whatever kind of nail fits our own hammer. He saw NG and wind as businesses that, from the supplier perspective, could be profitably scaled.

[DK0526]

@Teratornis also plug in have to get the energy from a source ie power plant that burns usually petro..so there is a loss with electric since you must support a larger grid and you lose portability and decentralization of fuel type market such as hydrogen fuel split from a nuclear source or plant. This is simple physics...ethnol is the worst choice since it requires the most resources from origin..ie the sun.

[DK0526]

@Teratornis

wind is flawed because it is a derivative of solar which is a derivative of the nuclear. Sun causes solar radiation which cause thermal convection or wind...the further you get from the source nuclear the inherently less efficient. Petro chemicals are efficient because they are stored solar over millions of years...so the short term answer is to find cleaner more efficent ways to burn petros then better solar capture, then nuclear or fussion..In that order. and or all together

[Teratornis]

Actually, Pickens wants to use natural gas to power heavy-duty vehicles, since that would require converting fewer vehicles to offset a given amount of petroleum. For light-duty vehicles, plug-in hybrids or EVs would be a faster path to get off fossil fuels entirely.

Governments have been picking winners in the energy business for decades. Without government there is no nuclear power, and no military adventures to protect Middle East oilfields.