T. Boone and Me

Sweetwater, Texas was once known for hosting the world's largest rattlesnake "roundup" -- 12,000 reptiles every year. Now it calls itself "the world's wind capital" and, by the end of the year, turbines there will be pumping out 3,000 megawatts of wind to provide green power to America's electricity customers. Sweetwater is the County seat of Nolan County, which by itself would rank as the world's fourth-largest nation for wind power -- boasting more wind than the entire state of California. The rattler-friendly pastures and cotton fields around Sweetwater are dotted with General Electric, Siemens, and Toshiba turbines -- big ones, some generating 2.3 megawatts a pop.

T. Boone Pickens was first known as an oil and gas man and then as a corporate raider, but these days he is jousting to topple Sweetwater from its title. Flying with me to visit his wind operations in Sweetwater, he makes it clear that his next wind project is big, Texas-style -- 4,000 megawatts up in the Panhandle north of here. Pickens just doesn't believe that America's energy future is in oil any more. He dismisses the current calls for opening up the coast to drilling, saying that the government's official estimates of oil and gas reserves are wildly inflated -- "the geology just isn't there."

Pickens is infuriated by our continued and increasing addiction to imported oil, which he says now costs us $700 billion a year, and will soon climb to an even trillion. (He is watching the market as we fly, and as oil hits $143 a barrel, the Dow plummets. Boone notes "well, my securities are going to go down, but my commodities book will make up for most of today's loss." Pickens is long on oil, meaning he is betting that the price keeps going up.)

To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.

But how can wind power, which generates electricity, help us out of our imported oil dilemma? Long-term, it will be through plug-in hybrid cars. But Pickens doesn't think we can afford to wait for the long term, so he's offering an audacious alternative vision -- generate enough wind so that America no longer needs to use natural gas to generate electricity, and then use that gas instead to power up to one-third of our vehicle fleet with compressed natural gas (CNG).

The conversion is clearly feasible. CNG cars are already normal in countries like Argentina, where they cost no more than conventional models. The  barriers in the U.S. have been the resistance of the major oil companies and that we would need to install CNG pumps at service stations. But many fleets already burn the fuel, which is much cleaner, and emits about one-third less carbon than gasoline. And CNG now has another advantage: It costs about half as much as gasoline does. If we were to convert any significant part of the U.S. fleet, the resulting decline in world oil demand would actually reduce oil prices, potentially sharply. It's probably the only short-term (2-3 year) strategy that might.

How to recruit the necessary public support? This would take, it seems to me, a government mandate to get the distribution network in place. After all, the oil industry has hardly rushed to install E85 pumps for ethanol. We can expect that it will fight any effort to break its monopoly. And the auto industry would need to be more than a passive partner if we're going to get enough CNG vehicles rolling off the assembly lines to make a difference.  Will it embrace this play? Lastly, the millions of Americans who own gasoline-powered trucks and SUVs would need to start buying affordable CNG-conversion kits for their vehicles to lower their driving costs. Pickens says he has a game plan, and will announce it next week.

Who knows? I certainly never expected to be inspecting wind operations with Pickens or to be hearing his scorn for the current political notion that we can somehow drill our way out of the oil-price crisis. He's certainly likely to draw an audience that a green wind-power advocate from the Sierra Club could never command. I think we should all stay tuned.

Comments

[Viper]

If your LONG oil, you dont want more drilling. He is now LONG.... was short.

And by the way he also shorted oil at 100 not long ago and got his ass kicked and then went long again! Since he went long, the speculation and overly high price of oil he was talking about when he was short then suddenly went away.

Pickens is about making money. His verbage will change to what makes him the most at any given point in time. He will pump you and dump you.

That said, the wind farm is a great idea. Cheapest form of energy, yet the Blue State New England area will not allow wind turbines offshore either!

Note however that the stocks of the companies making the wind turbines and nuclear are not going up ( GE is way,way down). Something's wrong with that if the switch is really on...

Regards

[Erdgeist]

There is not one sweeping solution but cluster of them. For example, 70% of the oil used in the U.S. is used by vehicles. 75% of the fuel used is weight related while only 0.3 % of the fuel burned actually accelerates the vehicle.

By using light and strong carbon fiber to replace steel we could reduce vehicle weight by as much as 60%. This would significantly boost vehicle fuel economy. For heavy trucks this would really be cost saving. And the safety issue is also a plus. Carbon fiber is many, many times stronger than steel.

[alvdh1]

Visit the Rock Mountain Institute to see what Amory Lovins is doing with carbon fibers for autos. Steel prices are through through the roof. Rio Tinto just negotiated a 98% increase in the price of iron ore. Take a bit out of steel and energy prices and urge your local corporate politician change his tune because we are going to vote this year for a change.

[sheila]

Seriously - Amory Lovins for President!! He is my hero. He is super-informed about Net Zero building, local, point of use renewable energy (as opposed to this wasteful, destructive "wind farm" baloney), conservation (i.e., "negawatts") and everything else that matters. I wish HE would blog on here because that guy is not only a fantastic visionary, but he walks the walk and actually BUILDS these things and they WORK! He gets it more than 90% of people who call themselves "environmentalists."

Rocky Mountain Institute: http://www.rmi.org/

Recent blog posting about smarter energy grid/ distributed (local) generation:

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/amorylovins/48/re-imagining-the-electric-grid.html

[Viper]

Did you know that only 18% of a barrel of oil is turned into gasoline...


Regards

[juangault]

When in doubt, whip it out. May work for a snake. But here's a copy and paste of the truth.

Question: How many gallons of gasoline does one barrel of oil make?

One barrel (42 gallons) of crude oil, when refined, yields approximately 19.6 gallons of finished motor gasoline. The remainder of the barrel yields distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, jet fuel, and other products.

To give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you meant "gallons"?

[leduck]

for all those people who think we can become energy independent....
do you have a gas stove and oven?
do you like eating food?
if we don't need natural gas, we certainly need fertilizer now..., so divorcing ourselves from the middle east will be impossible

not that it would ever happen anyway.

[leduck]

CNG
sweet
one problem
natural gas production in north amercia
the more time goes by, the more wells we have to drill to keep production flat
natural gas in north america will start to decline soon no matter what we do
that's why we want to build so many natural gas terminals
when natural gas starts to decline, it will not be a 3% or 6% decline like oil (except Cantarell)
natural gas declines at a rate of 15% or 18% (or more) a year
when it goes, it will be very fast
also
natural gas is what we use to make fertilizer
of course, the middle east and russia will keep the green revolution going after we no longer can
without fossil fuel, the green revolution ends

with around 6.5 billion people in the world, nattural gas is way to important to burn it in cars

[AllenD]

That decline rate is true of conventional natural but the growth in production in natural gas has been growing due to unconventional gas (note, in this post, when I say gas, I am referring to natural gas, not gasoline) production. Look at it this way, oil is priced by the barrel, gas by the 1000 cu ft. It takes 6,000 cu ft of gas to get the BTU equivalent of 1 BBL of oil. With oil at $140/ barrel gas should be priced at $20/1000 cu ft. In fact, since natural gas burns cleaner, is less polluting, and does not require much refining it could be argued that it should trade at a premium to oil. gas is now priced at $13/1000 cu ft.

Here is a link to some Oildrum.com articles on unconventional gas http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/unconventional_natural_gas

In the long run, I agree that we need to downsize vehicles, reduce the number of vehicles on the road, and run vehicles on electricity. Meanwhile natural gas conversion can help the guy who bought an SUV a year ago, is upside down an his payments, and cannot afford to get a new more fuel efficient vehicle for awhile.

[leduck]

we must give up on the love affair with cars
we need mass tranportation
trains that link big cities
and light rail inside them
we need to redesign cities around feet
to me, anything that tries to prolong the life of vehicles
can only be done at the expense of the rest of the world and our kids

it's not that we can't use natural gas to fuel cars...,
i just don't think it should be done
if we want to burn natural gas, we should use it to power light rail

it's like burning oil to power cars
when oil is in terminal decline, what do we do about plastic?
some things can't be made without plastic

cars must go

[Boboday555]

T. Boone...just more un-American confederate filth!
Maggots like him have far more in common with the chimpanzees in al Qeada than the Founding Fathers!
Pickens was behind the vile and un-American "Swift Boat Whores For Bush" campaing that maligned John Kerry, a Vietnam Veteran, to benefit a couple of republican cowards AWOL Bush and WAR DEFERMENTS Cheney!

The writing's on the wall...Pickens is a traitorous un-American confederate...same as he ever was!

[felixtkatz]

Maybe he found Jesus!

[SlinkyTWF]

More likely that he came to believe in the existence of Hell and realized he's getting old.

[jwws007]

Honda already has a cng car on the market, and this is one idea that would reduce foreign oil dependence immediately, and lower greenhouse gas emissions immediately. gm and ford would really help themselves quickly by putting these cars and hybrids on the market as soon as possible

[Keo]

Wasn't Pickins a Swift-Boat supporter?

[writeaway]

Yes he was and the idea that using natural gas will r educe transportation costs is naive. Once it gets inro wider usage, the costs will obviously go up.

[Viper]

Thats why Pickens also owns a public company called clean energy which is building CNG refueling stations.

Regards

[totalliberal]

At the very least he is calling the drill, drill, drill, philosophy for what it is. Absolute BS.

[alted1663]

Um , NO! T. Bone Pickens be lookin' to makin' a lot of money. Period!!!

[InofTouch]

Can wait for the word Green Baron *eve lol*

[vew]

The Technology is there for point of use consumption. Oil Barons and their paid for presidents don't want it. It's all about controlling the consumer.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

To all the anti-T. Boon Pickens types out there I have one message. STUFF IT!

Since the early 1970's (as in OVER 35 YEARS!) I have listened to Mother Earth News/Whole Earth Catalog types whining about how the big money boys wont invest in their eco-panaceas.

Now that one is, he's the freekin' Antichrist. Jesus wept! on occasion I feel like Rush Limbaugh whenever I confront the fact that some progressive types ARE NEVER SATISFIED by ANYTHING and ALWAYS

[mamacat]

According to the article, Pickens is "out to save America." That doesn't sound like a hit job to me.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

You obviously havent read many of the comments...

[Boboday555]

Well State-Side Bushy, T. Boone Scumbag did malign the patriotism of a Vietnam Veteran, John Kerry, to benefit the two republican cowards that have destroyed this nation over the past 7 disastrous years, George w. AWOL and Dick WAR DEFERMETNS Cheney.
We're sorry that we Real Americans can not forget acts of treason like you can.
But, Y'ALL could 'git' 'yerself' on down to the ENLISTMENT CENTER and show your support for T. Boone and his toady George W. AWOL by joining your AWOL President's War to help Halliburton's and Exxon-Mobile's bottom lines!
Remember Immanuel, George W. AWOL and his boss T. Boone Confederate want Y'ALL!

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

What does this rant have to do with energy policy? I thought that was the subject under discussion?

[tjfxh]

Get over it. T. Boone has not only the vision but the bucks to fund this transformation. For some time, he's been talking up both wind and solar, and doubtlessly expects to become a major player in the emeging alternative energy game.

This is going to happen. The job of progressives is to encourage decentralization (local and on site installations) to balance centralization (wind and solar farms).

[SouthernYankeeBelle]

I know the americans have it in them to look to the future. Getting more oil digs isn't going to do it.

[mikelartist]

Wind is not the answer at that cost. There is NO WAY they can compete with the new Nanosolar film. It uses no silicone, it is flexible and cheap. Right now it is only on the market for industrial clients. Consumers later when they gear up. Cost gets down to 30 cents a watt complete. NOTHING can compare with that cost upfront. Nothing. They can output a GIGAWATT per year with just one printer. This is the future so T boone can shove it.

http://nanosolar.com/

[research]

NanoSolar looks fantastic, but I prefer to have more than one solution. 20GW of wind was installed last year world wide. in 6 years, 100 GW of wind per year will be installed, just at current growth rates.

See my profile for who to get ALL our energy for about 1T$ over 10 years using Solar OR wind, and obvisouly both.

[CascadianPDX]

We *really* need storage for all of this cheap electricity we're going to be awash in. I read recently that we have more juice than we need here in the PNW due to all of the new wind farms and a full watershed for hydro generation. A fleet of plug-in cars would do nicely. To get there we need standards and coordination and the HELL with the effin' oil companies! I'm getting mighty frustrated with corporations extorting the entire world, likely to everyone's ultimate destruction, so that shareholders and CEOs can have coffee table magazine luxury lifestyles.

[Tom95134]

Great potential but not quite ready for prime-time yet.

[research]

says you? It's EXACTLY ready for prime time. You sure can't build a nuke of drilling platform in a year. see my profile complete wind solar energy plan for 1T$.

[Tom95134]

It will take both wind and solar to get us off the oil teat. However, the major issue is that ideal conditions for wind and solar don't exist where the power is required. This means that there will have to be a major redesign of our power distribution networks. Long distance AC transmission is simply too inefficient. The system will have to be redesigned to use ultra-high voltage DC for the long haul and then keep local and short haul distribution in AC. Europe is already planning this approach with a major concentrated solar generation facility in North Africa and UHV-DC transmission to southern Europe. The expectation is that it will meet all daytime electrical power needs for much of southern Europe. The side benefit is there there is a lot of excess heat which can be used for desalinization of sea water to meet freash water needs for north Africa.

[research]

Wrong on solar.

Rooftop solar exist at the same time and location as peak need: Air conditioning.

Off shore wind is some 10 miles out, while a major expense, it's completely doable and in fact 20GW of wind power were installed last year. People and industry are concentrated on the coasts.

And finally, we need to upgrade out electric distribution grid anyway.

[cylindar]

I doubt it! Pickens was the major funder for the Swift Boat guys. I do not think anything he does will please too many people on these pages. If anything people should do everything possible to see he goes out of business. I am for wind power but not if he puts it up. I hopepeople will oppose him with their own type of swiftboat.

[gonavy]

Get over it, we need more of these oilmen to support alternative sources of energy. There is a bigger problem to tackle than someones hurt feelings.

[faust2001]

Who killed the electric car?

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

What killed the electric car was the realization that few people wanted to spend $30,000 for what amounts to an ICE car with a 3 gallon gas tank that take 8 hours to fill up.

[research]

lead acid batteries and primitive bulky electronics kill GM's EV1.

A123 batteries completely solve the battery problem.

Electronics have gotten much better.

see my profile for details and links.