"Pickens Plan:" T. Boone Pickens Invests In, Pitches Alternative Energy

CNBC hosted T. Boone Pickens today to talk about oil prices and his new wind power venture.

Legendary oil investor T. Boone Pickens stood by his forecast that oil prices will hover around $150 a barrel now and told CNBC that they may fall to about $100 in two years.

"I'll stick with $150 (per barrel)," Pickens, who is also CEO of BP Capital, told "Squawk Box". "Demand going down, that's what will bring this thing in better balance".

Asked where he saw the price of oil going in the next two years, he said: "You could get it back down to about 100."

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, believes in the energy plan and blogged about it here at the Huffington Post.

Pickens had also recently been in the news for buying up a lot of water rights under the Texas panhandle -- a location that also scores a starring role in his wind power pitch.

Pickens has bought airtime for TV ads outlining his wind power plan, which have begun airing and are also available on his Web site. Watch below:

Comments

[NorthEasternEE]

This plan will double the use of natural gas in the generation of electric power. Here is why:
1. On average, wind plants generate 1/3 of their rated capacity.
2. The output varies between 0 and 3 times average.
3. As the wind dies, a conventional power source needs to be cranked up to make up the difference.
4. The preferred source of backup power is natural gas.
This means that natural gas use will have to increase to supply backup power 2/3 of the time, which translates into doubling the present use.
I can't believe that Mr. Pickens does not understand this.
So! What is going on???

[wolf58]

feel free to come to my home and donate a solar/wind system, because as much as I would do it now the price is beyond the reach of most homeowners.

[research]

You can't afford 1000$?

http://www.google.com/products?q=wind+turbine&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=X&resnum=1&ct=title&lnk=pruser&price1=400&price2=2000&btnP=Go

[mamacat]

BTW, Iberdrola Renewables of Spain plans to invest $8 billion in the United States between 2008 and 2012 to build wind farms. The plan is to add 1 GW of capacity per year from wind farms in each of those years.

Toyota in the automotive industry, Iberdrola in renewables; it is interesting to think what the U.S. economy would be without foreign investment.

[mamacat]

Bravo Mr. Pickens!

[Scotty65]

There is a Public Forum for discussions on Pickens Plan : www.pickensenergyplan.com
See you there !

[research]

for 1T$ and in 10 years or less, the US can replace all nukes, coal and oil energy with Wind, Solar and ecars.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research

wind and solar are the fastest path to more energy:
20GW of wind installed world wide last years, 2 GW of solar.

one 2M$ NanoSolar production machine can produce 1GW of solar cells per year, at 1$ per peak watt.

The machine is a roll to roll machine that may be capable of running fast enough to produce 200GW of solar cells per year.

Now is the time for wind and solar. No other sources come close to the speed, cost and sustainability.

The new lithium ion batteries have solved the "battery problem" so electric cars (plug in hybrids) are now coming to market in droves.

I Also think we should burn the remaining natural gas so that the Methane doesn't get released in the air cataclysmically, causing another methane mass extinction.

Pickens sees the future and is trying to corner it. Fortunately lots of other investors are also working on wind solar and ecars.

[martinchill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Boone_Pickens,_Jr.

[openhand]

There are 3 technologies that will end oil consumption.

Solar
Wind
Geo Thermal.

Every barrel of oil is foreign exchange, and a big cut for the middlemen in bush's OILYgarchy. Forget about reducing oil consumption or increasing efficiency. The internal combustion engine is a 20% efficient technological dinasaur that is destroying the planet....

[jrb35]

I'm all for expanding the use of solar, wind & geothermal for electricity generation. But how can we fuel our cars? Wind won't do that.

[martinchill]

pickens says natural gas.

[research]

Plug in hybrids that can go 30-60miles on electricity alone can replace 90% over oil used for vehicles.

[mamacat]

We need to get our cars off of fossil fuels. Raising CAFE standards, then hybrids, then plug-in hybrids, then electric-vehicles. Electricity generated by alternative energy methods will not harm our atmosphere, and can help power the next generation of cars.

Of course, other developments, such as expanding mass transit, would also help.

We can have a debate about nuclear, but right now alternative power sources are so underutilised and relatively cheap to develop, that it makes sense to develop them as rapidly as possible.

[research]

Wind and solar yes, but geothermal has two big problems:

Earthquakes and eventually cooling the core till it solidifies. A solid core has no magnetic field thus all life on Earth will die from exposure to hard space radiation.

[mamacat]

Earthquakes can destroy any power plant, not just geothermal.

Tapping geothermal heat for electricity production will not make the core cold. That's like saying that windturbines will stop the wind.

[loki]

I said it when he first started his Wind power plantation. He is going to robe us blind, and he is using his wealth and political pull to do it. this is just part of a long and profitable campaign to make him more money. Has nothing to do with helping Americans do squat. He would not waste a dime on helping someone else.

[martinchill]

while i agree that he's a classic republican, even going as far as funding the Swift Boats campaign against kerry in 2004 - your comment is false and moronic.

"robe us blind", hey?

~~

"Pickens and employees of his BP Capital LLC donated $7 million to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The Chronicle of Philanthropy lists Pickens as among its largest charitable givers 2005 and 2006. He has donated nearly a half a billion dollars to philanthropic causes during his career."

[josetony]

The idea of getting this country out of foreign oil addiction is not an easy one. The guy is trying to switch electrical consumption from natural gas and coal, to wind. Not a bad idea if we consider that wind generation is pollution free. Now the CNGas saved should be used to power the cars. The questions are ; How much does a compress natural gas convertion kit cost? Can we convert any car to run on CNG?How many CNG pump stations can be ready to give service? I read that there is a Honda that runs on CNG. If the price of conversion is right, many motorists will be willing to change from gasoline to natutal gas.

[martinchill]

i've seen pickup trucks running on natural gas for years - it's out there somewhere.

~~

He formed Pickens Fuel Corp. in 1997 and began touting natural gas as the best vehicular fuel alternative because it's a domestic resource that, among many advantages, is clean (Natural Gas Vehicles or NGVs emit up to 95% less pollution than gasoline or diesel vehicles) and reduces foreign oil consumption. Reincorporated as Clean Energy in 2001, the company now owns and operates natural gas fueling stations from British Columbia to the Mexican border.

On September 19, 2007, Pickens told CNBC that the price of oil could rise to $100. "Demand is up and supply is flat, so it's got to go on up," said Pickens, whose company is betting on natural gas for vehicles. "I can give you an Oklahoma guarantee that natural gas will never sell above diesel and gasoline prices" as fuel for vehicles, Pickens added.

[jrb35]

Explain something to me. How would an increase in wind generated electricity reduce our demand for oil? Cars will never run on wind power. Sure, if we had electric cars that charged from wind power, maybe... Do any of our electric generating stations run on oil? No that I'm against using clean energy. Sure beats coal fueled power plants.

BTW, Pickens is a lying, gutless sack of s**t who is not a man of his word. After financing the Swift Boat smears, he said he'd pay a million dollars to anyone who could prove that the smears were false. Well, Kerry's former crew mates dug up military records that proved the Swift Boaters were lying and Pickens refused to meet with them or pay up. He welched on a bet.

[jrb35]

Okay, I actually watched the video. Next time I won't comment before watching the video.

Here's the problem: Mr. Pickens assumes that the natural gas power plants will all decide to close up shop and go out of business once wind generators can provide 20% of power needs. That's a stretch. He also assumes that the auto industry will produce millions of natural gas powered cars and more importantly that the oil industry will convert millions of filling stations to natural gas. Yeah, right. Why would natural gas providers cease selling to natural gas burning power plants? It's not as if there won't be a market as opposed to an as of yet undeveloped natural gas powered auto industry. Why would those natural gas plants all close up shop once wind power comes along? Why would they cede an obviously profitable business that has an infrastructure already built (as opposed to the non-existent natural gas fueling stations)?

I'm all for building huge wind farms. But Mr. Pickens' predictions about how it will reduce our need for foreign oil is BS. Let's see him come out in favor of increasing fuel economy standards for the auto industry. Then we'll see if he's serious.

[TxAggie]

He has come out in support of all options while admitting that his interest is wind. It is also geology- he is a self made man that can talk the talk. His straight forward common sense appproach to a complex problem is refreshing and beats the hell outa listening to the do nothings in Washington.

[BlackbirdHighway]

Isn't Pickens too busy with all the swiftboating to worry about energy?

[MajorKong]

I don't care if he's doing the right thing for his own selfish reasons, he's still doing the right thing.

[ErnestineBass]

Maybe, Major, but ONLY if he pitches in to help convert our wasteful AC transmission infrastructure over to DC. (Which is doubtful...)

[Rule Of Law]

Remember Tesla? Edison couldn't stand in his shadow! Interesting story there about what happened to the man that challenged the establishment of his day.

[MajorKong]

Please explain how DC transmission is more efficient than AC. My degree actually was in electrical engineering, although I've never worked as an EE. I always thought that AC was more efficient over long distance because you can step up and step down the voltage through transformers. The higher the voltage, the less loss through resistance.

I believe this battle was fought between Edison and Westinghouse back in the early days of electric power generation.

[ShamusNYC]

Clearly, he has a significant degree of self-interest here, but that is all fairly transparent.

What I like about him is that (it seems like ) he understands that he is in the ENERGY business - not the oil business or wind business or ???

If only the major Oil companies had the same view, they would have been leading the charge in this area years ago (like, 30+ years ago!).

If America is going to have any economic hope in the coming years, it will be from leading the way in alternative energy.

[kae]

From the article:

"It"s been ten months since the publication of my book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which I argue that today"s preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis. With the globe being rocked by multiple shocks, this seems like a good time to see how and where the strategy is being applied."

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/03/10085/

-this is just the shiny new beginning of the next market to manipulate at our expense - his profit...the fact that this american beauty is also snatching up water rights just proves he's more ambulance chaser than environmentally conscious innovator........but I'll listen to his "proposal" before I 'm convinced, maybe he cares;)