When a long-time Texas oilman says the U.S. needs to use less oil, you know we’ve reached a tipping point. But that’s exactly what GOP supporter and legendary oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens is urging in his Pickens Plan to cut U.S. oil dependency by greatly expanding the use of wind energy.
“America is in a hole and it’s getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war. I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network we can break our addiction to foreign oil,” Mr. Pickens says.
The Pickens Plan calls for a “massive” shift towards wind energy for the nation’s electricity generation, freeing up natural gas to be used in cars and displacing up to 38% of the oil America imports every year – that’s the equivalent of all the oil we buy from the Middle East and Venezuela.
Besides promoting our energy security, the Pickens Plan has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by cutting the need for oil- and coal-fired electric-generating plants. The Plan’s website says, “According to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline.”
Check out www.PickensPlan.com or read this piece in USA Today. I’m not sure what our TR’s sponsors think of the details of his plan, but I think he’s right that America has to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and use more clean energy technologies. Given our interest here in reducing heat-trapping gases, I wonder if Mr. Pickens has calculated the benefits to wind energy that would come from a market-based cap & trade system.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Cap and Trade, Climate Change, Oil and Gas, Stewardship . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 13th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
There is a Public Discussion Forum for Pickens Energy Plan : http://www.pickensenergyplan.com
It would be great if you participate there.