The 1.6 million members of the Pickens Plan Army already know my New Year's resolution: as soon as health care wraps up in Congress, to see that Washington's number one public policy issue becomes winning approval of a plan to end our dangerous and costly dependence on foreign oil. Since July 2008, getting America the energy plan it needs and deserves has been the principal focus of my Pickens Plan, and the Christmas Day airline-bombing attempt only increased my determination.
Can you believe that the world's leading superpower funds both sides in the war on terror? Each month the U.S. government spends billions supporting our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet we spend even more money buying oil from governments that pay protection money to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Does this make sense? Of course it doesn't, particularly when we have the energy we need right here in our own backyard.
It is imperative that we utilize this country's enormous natural gas reserves as quickly as possible. In June, the Potential Gas Committee completed its biennial survey and announced that technological advances coupled with new discoveries had increased our domestic gas resources by an astonishing 39 percent. Not only do we have reserves capable of seeing us through the 21st century, but natural gas can put a huge dent in the amount of oil we import almost immediately. Corporations such as AT&T and cities such as Dallas are already switching their fleets to this cleaner burning, less expensive fuel.
Natural gas is cleaner. It's cheaper. And it's ours. No wonder the NAT GAS Act enjoys broad bipartisan support in the House. At last count H.R. 1835 has 126 cosponsors, ample evidence of why passing this bill needs to be a top priority in 2010.
There is no simple solution to winning the war on terrorism. Like any massive military campaign, battles must be waged in many theaters. Our fighting men and women are on the front lines, engaging an elusive enemy, and I support our troops through my own giving. I also support President Obama's directive to review watchlisting files and procedures as well as aviation screening technology. But all of us can contribute by doing our utmost to end this country's dangerous addiction to foreign oil. Our economy will benefit. Our environment will be better off. The real loser will be the terrorists.
Now that's a New Year's resolution.
Follow T. Boone Pickens on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pickensplan
Getting us off of Middle East oil is an awfully good idea.
BTW I agree with your trading philosophies and I am long Natural Gas.
Sky Minor
Ripoff priced natural gas to my home costs about $1 a gallon equiv. One gas stations in town sells it for $2.50 - the difference a huge profit to a giant corporation.
A home CNG station, really no more than a scuba tank compressor, could be mass produced for a few hundred bucks.
Utah does it right selling CNG at local gas stations for $1 a gal same as at home.
With nuclear power is the only possible in time answer to our less than ten years away civilization ending peak oil and climate crisis, a worldwide build of 10000 mass produced reactors would be payed for by and would end fossil fuel use, air pollution, peak oil and global warming all at once using only a small portion of current excess industrial capacity. The worldwide build would be an excellent employment generating investment with less than 3 year paybacks. Hyperion hot tub sized nukes would repower shipping Nuclear produced methane or methanol could continue to fuel non electric vehicles.
As we convert, home heating and power generation natural gas will add to the current gas supply
Call it the nuclear Picken's Plan.
Nuclear power leads to proliferation, leads to nuclear war: the Apocalypse, literally insane.
not to mention, quadrillion dollar million year deadly waste storage, dirty bombs, terrorist meltdowns, and 15-25 cent expensive electricity(minus the apocalyptic costs), or that it takes a decade from decision to first electricity for nukes.
Rooftop pv 3 cent solar is already the cheapest electricity the end user can buy.
New Solar panels have dropped in price from 8$ per Wp to less than 1$ per Wp in the last year or two. Production doubled in 2008,
order rooftop solar for all sunny gov roofs, economy recovers, energy cost go down.
the ONLY way to provide the worlds energy needs, cheaply, safely, cleanly and forever is
rooftop pv solar, waste biofuels and some wind and water turbines.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
What goes into the well is relatively benign but there are chemical processes that occur within the well to change the behavior of the fluid on its way out. The common practice in Texas is to inject the waste (several million gallons per frack operation) into deep wells. But the handling of the waste is exempt from the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act so evaporation and spills are putting toxins into the environment. There have also been underground failures that have led to polluted aquifers and individual wells.
The industry has the smarts and capacity to create closed loop and clean processes but those will increase costs. Thus, regulation will be required and it needs to be at a national level. What is of no value is the hysterical shrieking about those added burdens; they will be shared by all producers and paid for by consumers.
Was that decade just a horrible nightmare? Of course I'm being facetious, but there were more-than-a-few times during during the last ten years - particularly during the time the Bush Mob was in power - that I would awaken suddenly in the middle of the night and say out loud,
"Did I dream that?"
"Is Bush seriously president?"
"Did we actually invade Iraq?"
"Are the Spice Girls really number one?"
It's over. Thankfully.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen NY
http://www.grist.org/article/all-about-water
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm
http://www.alternet.org/environment/95471/why_t._boone_pickens%27_%27clean_energy%27_plan_is_a_ponzi_scheme/
The stuff they are fracking up now, is expensive and incredibly environmentally destructive.
The Only clean, safe, cheap and forever solution to our energy problems is:
Rooftop pv 3 cent solar, WASTE Bio Fuels, and some wind and water turbines.
Hydraulic fracturing "fracking" is a process used in oil drilling and has been since the 1940's. I have never heard much outcry over it till now when cleaner, domestic natural gas seems to threaten the utopian view of extreme greens (which it really doesn't).
Gas wells in shale are drilled to an average of 9000 to 12,000 feet which is way below the water table everywhere. Fracking fluid is both a lubricant and a carrier for material which can range from nut shells to expanding foam. The drilling process fractures the shale so that natural gas can escape more easily and the material in the fracking fluid holds the cracks open.
There are water based fracking fluids. So if a water based fluid is used with natural materials such as nut shells included to hold the cracks in the rock open then there wouldn't be a problem at all with it would there?
Natural gas fired electric plants are a great component in a solar wind energy economy because both solar and wind energy are intermittent and there has to be a reliable source of energy which can be turned on and off rapidly to keep up an uninterrupted energy flow when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Natural gas is the perfect fuel to meet those needs.
Natural gas is cleaner? Prove it, please! Please provide proof that considered cradle to grave gas, or methane, is cleaner. I've not yet seen one study to back up this claim. And in that research, please consider the fugitive emissions, leaks and all the many incidents such as well blowouts where methane shoots into the air. Pressure releases at compressor stations can release billions of cubic feet of methane into the air.
There are many conservatives--I live in Texas and I'm a mineral owner AND a surface owner--who are also concerned with the processes involved in methane extraction so trying to paint all who are concerned with a broad brush seems extreme.
Even though the wells are deeper than groundwater sources, they are drilled right through groundwater. Industry literature confirms that there is reason to be concerned because of problems with the wellbore leaking http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/12/texas-has-no-regulation-specific-to.html There are many harmful additives in the frack fluid including asbestos and silica http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/12/asbestos-in-hydraulic-fracturing-fluid.html.
Even using water & nut shells--some nut shells are toxic--there are still problems with fracking. Geothermal research was halted in CA because of the hydraulic fracturing induced earthquakes similar to the ones experienced in many areas where hydraulic fracturing is used extensively.
Not the answer to global warming, unfortunately, which is actually real and going to bite our butts in a few years.
But it is the answer to energy independence, which would change so many things for the better in the US or even (think big) the entire Americas.
Energy independence? Maybe our foreign policy in the Mid-East and with respect to Moslems could actually make sense? How much $$$$$ would that save??
Energy independence? The whole nation would have a sense of security which is currently lacking.
... there are many more benefits ... how to do it??
1) Natural gas refueling stations all over the US. We need them in small towns of 5,000 or more as well as big cities. A refueling station can be created for less than $100,000. Why isn't our government installing them nationwide as part of a "stimulus"??
2) Tax credits. A few years ago, we had a federal tax credit where a business could write off the entire cost of a vehicle in one year if it had a Gross Vehicle Weight of at least 8,000 lbs .. ie, was a lumbering energy hog. Why not a total write off in one year for any flex fuel vehicle where the flexing fuel is natural gas??
T. Boone Pickens: Never thought I would say this, but when YOU are right, you are still right even tho its you!!!!
Next time: Why the War On Drugs should be resolved the same way. Americans CAN grow their own dope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing
http://www.newsweek.com/id/154394
"A few days later, Behr's skin turned yellow. She began vomiting and retaining fluid. Her husband rushed her to Mercy where Behr was admitted to the ICU with a swollen liver, erratic blood counts and lungs filling with fluid. "I couldn't breath," she recalls. "I was drowning from the inside out." The diagnosis: chemical poisoning. The makers of the suspected chemical, Weatherford, tell NEWSWEEK that they aren't sure if their brand of fracking fluid can be blamed for her illness."
Getting gas from waste bio char is cheaper, safer, and actually cleans out the landfills and dumps.
Actually, it's not an isolated case. In LA 17 healthy cow died within a couple of hours after frack fluid was spilled into their pasture (please note that they were NOT in the pasture where Schlumberger was fracking a Cheseapeake well.) . A Chesapeake Energy official admitted that the frack fluid was less than 1% chemical. http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/08/breaking-chesapeake-official-admits.html Seems way too lethal to be sloshing around deep underground where it can find it's way into our drinking water. Reckless!