Pickens’ Busy Week: Predicts New Oil Spike and Promotes Pickens Plan on The View
T. Boone Pickens reiterated on Thursday his belief that oil prices are on the verge of another spike. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics conference, Pickens predicted that U.S. crude oil prices will hit $75 by the end of 2009. Pickens also asserted, “If you don’t think we’ll see $200 to $300 oil in 10 years, you are kidding yourself. You think OPEC is a free market? We have no control over what is going on.”
Pickens had a busy week, also appearing on The View on Monday:
Delays Continue for Pickens’ Texas Panhandle Wind Farm
Apparently the delays for T. Boone’s massive wind farm project in the Texas panhandle are not going to end anytime soon. Earth2Tech reports that at the Clean Tech Investor Summit on Wednesday, Pickens said that his wind farm would likely be delayed at least to 2011. But that even then, Pickens warned, “We’ll see what happens in 2-3 years.”
Earth2Tech notes that although the credit crisis has put a damper on Pickens’ own wind farm project, he is still pushing hard for the country to adopt the Pickens Plan, reiterating his argument that with a $28 billion investment, the U.S. could convert 350,000 diesel trucks to natural gas, which would reduce oil imports by 5% and create nearly half a million jobs.
PickensPlan.com Utilizes Interactive Oil Imports Map
The Pickens Plan website just uploaded the Rocky Mountain Institute’s interactive oil imports map that we looked at last week (funded by Google.org). Smart move.
T. Boone is Back!
Our friend Boone Pickens (“the man with the plan”) has released a new commercial and message. His message echoes many of our recently expressed concerns about rising gas prices and the lessons to be taken from the current Russia-Ukraine natural gas dispute. The entirety of his message is printed below:
Survey: Oil will lose position as world’s cheapest energy source
A Deloitte Consulting survey released on Wednesday found that 3 out of 4 energy executives believe that oil and natural gas will lose the top ranking as the world’s cheapest energy sources within 25 years.
Additionally, just over 50% of those surveyed believe that the US could run out of reasonably priced oil within that time period, and that the world would run out of reasonably priced oil within 50 years.
And giving credence to the Pickens Plan, the majority also felt that natural gas was the most promising alternative to petroleum for transportation needs. Only 30% felt electric plug-ins were the most promising alternative.
Gary Adams, vice chairman of oil and gas at Deloitte, noted, “Clearly, the oil and gas professionals involved in our survey are starting to think about the nation’s transition to renewable energy and other alternative fuels.”
Most of the executives surveyed work for energy companies with annual revenues greater than $100 million.
Pickens on Meet the Press
Pickens: “I’ll make you a $10 bet… that we’ll be back to $100 [per barrel] a year from now.”
T. Boone Pickens on The Daily Show
T. Boone gives his best interview yet.
Pickens may scale back on Texas wind farm
A few blogs are reporting that Boone Pickens is scaling back plans for his planned wind farm in the Texas panhandle. 60 Minutes noted last week that his energy fund has already lost $2 billion this year to date, which has caused a number of investors to remove their money. Now, Pickens is apparently having trouble with the financing of his 4000 MW farm near Sweetwater, TX. These problems stem from falling energy prices and the credit crunch.
Of course, it is important to note that Pickens’ $10 billion wind farm in the Texas panhandle is distinct from his Pickens Plan, which is a proposal to shift our entire energy policy and infrastructure. Nonetheless, as we’ve noted, the shifting economic and market conditions could easily derail efforts to change our energy policy. For the same reason that entrepreneurs will enter the alternative energy business (to make money), they will also leave.
Environmentalists shouldn’t miss an opportunity to include the rest of the country in the cause
Some environmentalists focus so much on the ecological effects of our energy crisis that they ignore the very real geopolitical effects that are also being caused by our over-consumption of oil. This narrow view has two fundamental problems.
First, it fails to tap into a large portion of the population that may not be very sympathetic to green causes, but are quite sensitive to national security issues. If framed in the right way, this huge group of voters would become much more open to environmental policies. READ MORE
Pickens on 60 Minutes
T. Boone was on 60 Minutes last night discussing The Pickens Plan. Interviewed by Charlie Rose, Pickens discussed both his plan as well as his life. It is an interesting piece but didn’t cover much that we haven’t already looked at here. He did note that “This needs to be identified as ‘emergency.’ It’s a crisis. We’re at war with no guns.”
Pickens on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money
T. Boone Pickens appeared on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money last night. Cramer, an avid supporter of the Pickens Plan, discussed with Boone his plan as well as the current failure of leadership in Washington. Here are some of the highlights:
Cramer introduced the Pickens Plan as a “Marshall plan for power.” READ MORE
Increased natural gas supplies would improve feasibility of Pickens Plan
Assuming, as we have recently, that battery technology is not yet developed enough to support an all electric automotive system throughout the country, that leaves us with the question of what to do now. As we know, T. Boone proposes that we use natural gas as a “bridge” fuel to power our cars until battery technology progresses. He reiterated his concerns about battery technology after the debate last week, asserting that electric cars “are still a long ways off.”
If this is true, we have to decide whether we are going to have an ad hoc approach to changing the current fuel situation, or whether we are going to implement a comprehensive, albeit temporary, solution like switching our cars to natural gas. READ MORE
Battery technology must progress substantially before fully powering cars
It seems that the state of battery technology is still a ways away from being able to allow for widespread adoption of purely electric vehicles. This is one of the key points in the debate about the Pickens Plan. That is, whether we should convert all of our cars to natural gas, or go straight to electric? The answer depends on whether the technology is or is not there yet.
The next generation of car batteries are going to be litium-ion, which will replace nickel metal-hydride batteries. However, in order to move to the next generation of vehicle batteries, big improvements must be made to extend the life, lower the cost, and increase the safety of these new batteries. This is according to Tien Duong, a high ranking official at the U.S. Department of Energy, who answered questions at a lithium battery conference last week.
According to Duong, we are still some ways away from developing a lithium battery that can power a car for 40 miles on electricity alone by 2016, a goal of the Dept. of Energy. On the one hand, this sounds surprising given the recent excitement over proposed electric cars like the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius plug-in. But on the other, as I sit here with an overheating notebook computer on my lap and a cell phone whose battery can’t last for more than one day, both of which use lithium-ion batteries, I can’t say that I’m shocked. If that is in fact the case, we better not put all our eggs in the electric car basket quite yet… at least for the near future.
[Note: in the Reuters article, Duong does say that there is a lot of discussion in Washington of funding a Department of Defense $1 billion battery project. This marshalling of resources, to me, would seem to be one of the best shots at making rapid progress with this technology.]
NBC refuses to air Pickens ad about Iran
By now, it is no secret that we like the Pickens Plan. The combination of vision and pragmatism, coupled with a concrete roadmap and resources to back it up are very appealing to us. As subscribers to the Pickens Plan mailing list, we received the following message to his enthusiastically termed “army” yesterday:
Army:
NBC is refusing to run one of our strongest ads, and I need your help in showing NBC they can’t control what we can or cannot say.
The 15-second ad talks about how the government of Iran is making a MAJOR effort to use natural gas in their vehicles so they can free up $120 a barrel oil to sell to us while we are doing nothing.
I need you to click on the link, watch the ad, then send it to five of your friends. Please ask each of those five people to send it on to five of THEIR friends.
This is important. Let me know what you think.
According to his website:
In the ad Boone talks about how the Iranians are moving quickly to vehicles powered by natural gas so they can free up their $120 a barrel oil to sell to us. Boone says: “Get this one. Iran is changing its cars to run on natural gas and we’re not doing a thing here…”
The problem? NBC wants us to PROVE that “we’re not doing a thing here.”
Who knows if this was NBC’s exact objection? But regardless, we don’t see much for them to object to in this ad.
[Update: NBC has decided to allow this ad to be aired on its networks.]
Critique of Pickens Plan misses the point
On the Internet, it is especially easy to be a critic from afar, breaking down or building up different things with emotions and imagery rather than critical thought and analysis. This seems to be the case with recent allegations that the Pickens Plan is merely an elaborate attempt by T. Boone to distract people from his real goal of “drain[ing] the Ogallala Aquifer.”
It is no secret that Pickens has had a controversial plan to pump water out of the Ogallala Aquifer and transport it to population centers in Texas, such as Dallas. While we are opposed to recklessly drawing down limited resources, like the Ogallala Aquifer, for short-term development, this fact alone does not mean the Pickens Plan (the proposal to shift 20% of our energy generation to wind) is some sort of massive bait-and-switch.
The main problem with their argument is that the Ogallala Aquifer plan is related to the $10 billion wind farm project that Pickens is currently developing in the Texas Panhandle, which is going forward regardless of whether the Pickens Plan is implemented. Pickens’ local wind and water projects are related because recent changes to the state law in Texas (advocated by Pickens) allows for alternative energy and water transmission to share the same right-of-way. The water issue, that some websites and bloggers are wringing their hands over, is a discrete issue within Texas that is not directly related to the overarching policy shift the Pickens Plan proposes.
With that said, we really have no idea what is truly in Pickens’ heart with respect to the Pickens Plan. Like all people, only an individual can know their true intentions. But an objective look at the evidence indicates Pickens is being sincere. As we noted yesterday, Pickens doesn’t even claim that his plan is primarily intended to save the environment. Instead, his stated purpose is to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil. And the fact that he is “rich” and a “Bush supporter” is not evidence of duplicity. Will he make a profit if his plan is enacted? Of course, since he is the biggest developer of wind power in the country. But there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
Rather, it is the very alignment of profit and national interest that has created the current environment where a proposal like the Pickens Plan or Gore’s 10 Year Plan are actually contemplated. It’s not like we just realized this year that global warming and dependence on foreign oil is a bad thing. Instead, it is that fuel prices have finally gone up enough to make it profitable to pursue alternative sources. This alignment of profit and public interest is our best chance to make a real shift in the way we power our country. To dismiss attempts at change because they have a profit interest related to them is to miss the biggest opportunity we’ve had in a generation to improve the environment and our country. Not to mention, those criticizing the Pickens Plan based on the Ogallala Aquifer issue are making a moot argument since these are two distinct issues.
