A closer look at the Pickens Plan
We have spent a lot of time lionizing T. Boone Pickens over the past week for his proposed Pickens Plan. Now we want to dig a little deeper into this plan to see what types of problems it might contain. The most common critique we’ve seen is related to the part of the proposal that would shift natural gas use from electricity generation to powering automobiles. Although Pickens recognizes that the shift to natural gas in automobiles is not going to be a permanent solution, there do seem to be some other legitimate criticisms. Mainly, these criticisms have to do with the problem of greenhouse gas emissions rather than dependency on foreign oil.
Specifically, while natural gas vehicles have fewer emissions than those that burn petroleum, this savings may be overshadowed by the fact that natural gas is a relatively clean and efficient means of generating electricity. Additionally, natural gas is a very reliable source of energy, while winds can be fleeting. By removing natural gas from the grid, some of these valuable benefits will be lost. As a result, some have argued that instead of using wind power to replace natural gas on the grid, maybe it would make more sense to only implement the part of the Pickens Plan that calls for massive wind power development and disregard the proposed shift to natural gas vehicles. This would allow us to use the new wind energy to replace dirty coal instead of relatively clean natural gas.
Of course, this would leave unsolved the question of what to do about our vehicles. However, as some companies are trying to demonstrate, if cars can instead be shifted to electric power, focusing on how we generate power for the grid may be the right path. Since electric cars are fueled by plugging into the grid, where that electricity comes from and how it was generated is a major component of what determines that car’s emissions efficiency. By focusing on how to make our grid power as clean and efficient as possible (i.e., through a massive wind energy development), we could be indirectly creating the conditions necessary to shift our cars off of petroleum and on to a cleaner source.
Regardless, whether the Pickens Plan should be implemented in full, or just in parts, it is clear that there is enormous value in him merely providing a concrete proposal. By articulating a specific plan, Pickens has given policy makers and the public something concrete to debate and analyze. Just framing the proposed strategy in specific terms now allows us to better discuss the proposed path and consequently, move us much closer to actual action.
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Comments
One Comment on A closer look at the Pickens Plan
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Tom Gray on
Sat, 19th Jul 2008 7:49 am
The U.S. Department of Energy recently released a report indicating that generating 20% of U.S. electricity with wind by 2030 is feasible. See http://www.20percentwind.org .
The important thing to note is that doing this would reduce natural gas use for electricity generation by 50%, even though 90,000 megawatts of new gas-fired generating capacity would be needed to provide balancing for the wind generation. The point being, wind can displace a lot of gas even if gas is still used to provide dependable generation during periods of peak demand.
Regards,
Thomas O. Gray
American Wind Energy Association
http://www.powerofwind.org
http://www.awea.org
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