T. Boone Pickens is a billionaire oil man and a career corporate raider who loves George Bush so much he donated $250,000 to his 2004 inaugural ball. He was, and still is, fully behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq and makes no bones about it. So why is he now pushing for the use of alternative energy sources like wind and solar in his Pickens Plan?
It might be because he sees the soaring price of gas and how it is crushing the average American and decided to invest billions of dollars of his own money on a bet that it will pay off. His holdings in natural gas would make his a very healthy profit, should we convert to using it more. Don’t get me wrong, I support anyone who wants to lower our dependence on oil and clean up our environment, but if you watch the above video and go to the PP website you’ll see that the environment doesn’t get much play. In fact, considering his push for OCS drilling, I’d say the environment isn’t the overriding issue, just ridding us of our dependence on foreign oil.
Carl Pope, Executive Director of The Sierra Club has praised his plan, going so far as to say Pickens is “out to save America” — and I have no problem with that — but do financial motivations vs. environmental motivations matter? Should we just be thankful that someone has stepped up to the plate, even if it means that the ultra-wealthy will once again control our energy resources, or do we strive for more ownership in the future of our own energy policy and demand more emphasis and accountability on our environment? In the end, will Pickens’ plan even work?
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He was also a driving force behind the SwiftBoat ads.
Puke.
Baby steps, baby steps.
There will be right-wingers still listening to the nutbag global warming deniers who might now quit burying their heads in the sand over this. But, make no mistake, the crisis opportunists are already looking to control, capitolize and profit off of whatever energy source we use.
They would charge us for sunlight if they could figure out how.
Pickens is a smart bastard.
He’s figured out an angle.
Pickens is a puke but if he is behind helping us get off the oil and try a new source then we need it. These things have a way of working themselves out and this whole alternative energy thing needs as much as a jump start as it can get.
We’ve been here before. “They” jacked up the oil price in to ’70’s. Alternative energy investment R&D ramped up, and the oil price mysteriously crashed before products came to market.
He’s spending a ton of money running tv commercials about his plan. I’d like to think he’s just being a good samaritan but with people like him, you have to be on your guard at all times.
“…do financial motivations vs. environmental motivations matter?”
Does it matter if the financial motivations are consistent with solving environmental matters? I don’t think so. It’s when financial motivation is at odds with enviromental matters that it’s problematic.
It’s really simple folks. He lobbying for TAX CREDITS!!! If his idea is so good, so economically viable why does it all depend on him getting TAX CREDITS? The press is so stupid it misses the forest through the trees.
He’s only as green as his money.
Cal @ 3:
Yep. He and all the soon to be out of work Daniel Plainviews are looking for a way to keep selling us energy pumped from wells that they own through pipelines that they own out of “gas” stations that they own.
The answer is not new fossil fuel sources. Its de-centralzed power being generated from that big burning ball in the sky that we all own.
pissed off patricia @ 6:
Exactly! He’s in it for the $$. But if he can play well with others it could be a good thing.
Cal @ 3:
He figured out that he can make some money on this. I would not trust this guy if he said the sky was blue.
“0.0143%“
Greed has been the motivating force behind innovation in America for some time and will be for the foreseeable future. It’s a force of our human nature. You can fight against it but that would be futile. Better to turn it to your advantage.
We’re at the point where you can’t have anything worse than the current model.
I think he’s one of the few oil men who see the writing on the wall and realize that it’s the end of cheap oil (not oil altogether, there’s plenty still in stockpiles and the ground, but it’s “sour crude”… high sulfur oil that’s very expensive to refine). He’s just getting on board for the next energy source that he can exploit and sell to consumers.
And his idea of switching out natural gas powerplants to cars is sort of silly. Powerplants burn natural gas at around 50-60% efficiency, while for cars it’s somewhere around 15-20%. It would make more sense to use electric cars plugged into power from powerplants, even if the transmission lines lose almost half the power.
There will be all sorts of Capital flowing towards various eco-tech facets as it is after all, the emerging future but the simpler issue is in every person’s hands, reduce your carbon foot print. If you have a bloat mobile, get rid of it. If you are in some bloated mcmansion with the ac cranked all day, get rid of it.
When it comes time to move, don’t make the mistake of going off to some sprawl pit far from anything useful. Restore life to a human scale.
There will NEVER EVER again be cheap oil so all would do well to prepare for post oil. Do a personal consumption.
The only workable answer to this problem is demand reduction. There are no magic tech solutions.And the transition away from oil will turn on millions of little personal decisions and adaptations. You can make them now and be ahead of the mess or wait until conditions force it on you.
One Year Wonder @ 14:
That’s what we said at the end of Bush’s first term. *rolleyes*
This last year I have been looking for products to build , every month I shell out my storage fees while my welding and machine shop gather dust . Its not the building or R&D that stops me , its the marketing . It so true ” it takes money to make money ” .
Agreed, although I’d say it goes beyond sort of silly into full blown silly.
I find it interesting that he moved his natural gas to powering cars when the correct move would have been to take it out of the coal power plants and just remove that much coal off the table. Substituting green power for coal would also help in the next generation cars - which are clearly going to be hybrids for the majority of the next decade - since the plugins (FINALLY due out in ‘10) will be doing more of their fueling from the grid instead of imported oil, which would also be reduced.
Ryan in IL @ 1:
First thing that came to my mind when I saw his name. Would have a hard time taking anything he says without wondering what’s in it for him.
It’s all about WATER. T. Boone’s plan has been to pump the Ogallala Aquifer water to thirsty cities like Dallas. Thanks to to the TX legislature, it is much easier for him to get eminent domain to run the piplines and the powerlines above it.
This sounds like ’sustainability’ and Carbon Taxes in disguise as ‘assistance’ from an oil Robber-Baron. I am one to believe that the uber-rich are the pigs, and we are the rest of the animals on the farm…they are just putting icing on the cake for us to eat, and this is an example. Remember that we can make negative impact petroleum out of existing resources (garbage, oil shale, bio-diesel, and *gasp*, should I say it?…Hemp). Might even stimulate more JOBS!!!!
I forsee petroleum-powered cars as a luxury item in the next 50 years; Not because of oil prices, but of social engineering. Remember that the only sector of Retail that is in the black is high-end consumer items (handbags, jewelry, etc).
Swiftboater jerk.!!!!!!!!
The Republicans are desperately trying to rebrand themselves as human beings with a conscience. This prick honestly wants us to believe that oilmen didn’t get us in to this damned mess, and that they haven’t fought alternative energy every step of the way.
It’s so cute how they’re trying to fake credibility.
It’s also about wind. He’s put $10b of his own money behind the creation of the largest wind farm in the country. Further, his plan calls for the extension of the tax credit for wind farms. As stated above, he needs to extend the right of eminent domain he’s garnered for his water claims for the powerlines to run the juice to Dallas. Ingenious and certainly motivated by greed, but at the same time also focused towards stopping the flow of US capital to the middle east. It is what it is.
Johnny2Bad @ 9:
Wind farming is so old it’s date back to the BC/E era.
I’d try selling farmer and the likes on that first and then try to sell them on puting solar panals on their barns and out buildings.
Did Deadbeat Boone ever pay on the bet he made about Kerry’s military record? No. T Booner is a lying phony.
Just Maybe T.Boone Pickins (great name) has had a moment of enlightenment.
Little know fact: He (and/or his wife) arranged and PAID for several charter flights of stranded and abandoned animals from Hurricane Katrina to be placed in Humane Societies such as The Marin Humane Society saving hundreds of animals’ lives. He may be seeing “the light”. He is getting older and sounds like WISER. Just Maybe………..
Geez, i do not like the extreme right wing at all..Reading these comments make me wonder if the left is not as scary as the right…Who cares what the motivation is, as long as we are moving in the right direction? Some of you sound like the left’s version of Fox News. Any idea or statement that comes from someone on the right is immediately slammed. This wonderful two party system has created an invironment where both sides are frightened the other might have a good idea! I have no idea if Pickens ideas are solid, or if he has some master plan to destroy us. I just know i am listening if someone has a plan for so future suck ass presidents won’t have to hold the Saudi King’s hand…Lets make the Bush family the last official oil pimps for the King!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve got it!
In a few years Pickens and his ilk are going to try to make it a law that to have a solar panal or a wind turbine you’ve got to have a Federal licence!
T. Booner also lied on NPR that none of our politicians did anything years ago when they could have. Jimmy Carter tried to but then Pickens help elect-all-oil-all-the-time Reagan in ‘80. Pickens is a lying phony.
I don’t mind if someone makes a buck off a plan, I just want it to be the right plan. I don’t want to be sold an environmental pig in a poke.
Well, you know that this country is and has been doing really well under the oilmen, so I’m all for doing whatever Mr. Pickens’ needs me to do so he can become a trillionaire.
Boone Pickens is not an honorabe man.He made a million dollar bet and lost it.Tried to change the rules after he lost it and refused to pay. He and Bush both Texans I would’nt trust either one .
I wouldn’t trust this guy any farther than I could throw him.
Especially after his grandiouse touting of that “Million dollar reward” on the Swiftboat thing,
and then his clumsy attempt to move the goalposts.
All of those in favor of getting this economy off of the Oil-based doom its heading for…
Here’s a great plan: http://www.vanityfair.com/poli.....ntPage=all
We have the technology, we know what we need to do, we just need to force the representatives we vote into office into voting for the best interests of the nation…that’s the biggest and most difficult challenge….we have to push them, we can’t expect them to do it in the face of Old Energy’s deep, deep pockets….
Pickens is somewhat of an enigma to me. I study the Peak Oil phenomenon, and he clearly agrees with the analysis. But then I found out what a big contributor to Bush and the Republicans he was / and / or is. Seems like he just wants to make a buck out of the movement.
Which is OK, I guess. But the dilemma is to get off OIL, not just FOREIGN OIL. That’s the problem with Global Warming, and I’m not sure how that fits into his analysis. Looks like he wants to make some big money before the old coot dies?
does this fall under the thought that something good can come from something bad?
Interesting that he talks about Natural Gas. I even thought about converting my car to natural gas in the past.
The problem is, just like Peak Oil, there will be a Peak Natural Gas problem as well. Some people think it will hit only 5-10 years after Peak Oil. Now I see that he owns a lot of Natural Gas stuff. One of the core problems is, like he said, 75% of Americans own cars, whereas 4.4% of Chinese own cars. We need walkable, livable communities, and better public transportation and rail. I don’t think he gives this aspect of the problem any attention.
It doesn’t matter how much wealth this man accumulates, he is, has been, and always will be a deceptive, manipulating, unethical, greedy scumbag.
You can’t make a strawberry shake with a pile of shit.
The wind idea is commendable, but going over to CNG is like saying somebody with emphysema needs to catch tuberculosis instead. And “clean” coal? Forget that. Coal burning already accounts for 30% of greenhouse gases not to mention the long lasting and destructive effects of the mining.
Given Pickens checkered track record, I’ll believe it when I see it.
It all sounds so good but I don’t trust that bastard. He wants to be the Rockefeller of Natural Gas, wind and Texas water supplies. One thing has motivated that scumbag and it is greed. His motivations have nothing to do with protecting Americans. This is what Lonny posted in comment 21, and it deserves to be read by anybody that thinks Pickens is motivated by the reasons he claims.
I have been saying for many years now that if we were to decentralize our electric power community after community would naturally sort out what is the best source of alternate energy for them selves. A thousand different communities would be using a thousand different power sources. There isn’t a community I know of that would willingly choose to pay for a diesel or gas driven power plant or a nuclear power plant. I say that the motivation is important, if all is greed driven then they will through communities under the bus as soon as anything doesnt go their way.
Alternative energy sources? Let me paraphrase. “We gunna make and manipulate the price of all sources of energy so you can only be havin it under the control of me and my buddies.”
He’s right about one of his major points: WE NEED LEADERSHIP.
Past Republican leadership: DRILL MORE OIL!
Future Republican leadership: DRILL MORE OIL!
He also said we have to do this together.
Does that mean BI-PARTISANSHIP?
Are those guys capable of that?
He means we need a new round of OILMEN
IF it will work I say we not only support his plan (regardless of how much money it makes him) but that JOHN KERRY himself should set a BIG example of humility (and hopefully get like treatment from Pickens) and come up with some way to help make this plan into a LEFT + RIGHT for America effort…
Bush just spoke to the cameras about the passage of the FISA bill. He tried to hide his happiness, but you could see it was there. I never came so close to knocking my fu*king tv over as I did then.
Corey Carroll @ 39:
Ummm… no there won’t. The natural gas that is burned as a fuel is 99% methane (unlike the stuff out of the ground which is 70-90% methane and 10-30% other hydrocarbon gases), and methane comes from any rotting bio-matter (garbage dumps, sewage lines, your compost heap… you name it). It’s a huge misnomer that natural gas is a fossil fuel. Sure, it’s found in coal and oil beds, but the usable part of it (methane) easily comes from bio sources.
Say what you will about Pickens, he is above all