Pickens Updates White Board Presentation

362 million: That's how many barrels of foreign oil we imported in June.

That's about 25 percent of the world's oil demand, and it is used by just 4 percent of the world's population.

When we first began the Pickens Plan, I created a white board presentation explaining how America can reduce its oil imports using domestic resources. I recently updated that presentation; to see it here:

When then-Senator Obama accepted the nomination for president, he pledged to end our dependence on oil imported from the Middle East in ten years. That was two years ago, so we can still meet that goal if we act now.

According to the June oil import numbers released by the Department of Energy, we are still importing approximately 12 million barrels of oil per day and spending about a billion dollars a day to get it. About 70 percent of that oil is used as a transportation fuel even though we have our very own resources here that could fuel our vehicles. It just doesn't make any sense that we continue to send money abroad when we can keep it in our economy and in our wallets.

For example, we can reduce our need for OPEC oil by half if we convert our national fleet of 18-wheelers from imported diesel to domestic natural gas. We have 8 million heavy-duty trucks using about a third of all oil used for transportation, and rotating them from diesel to natural gas would save about $100 billion from being sent to OPEC. It would also kick-start an entirely new natural gas vehicle industry in the United States, which would equal jobs at all levels of production.

I've said from the beginning that we need a bipartisan, American plan to use our domestic resources - natural gas, solar wind, ethanol, and hydro, to name a few - to move us away from the need to import 5 million barrels of OPEC oil per day for use as a transportation fuel. We've got the resources to do it and just need to get an energy bill over the finish line.

Please forward this post to your network, share the video with your friends on Facebook, and retweet it to your Twitter followers. You can also post a video response and let's continue this important conversation.

-- T. Boone Pickens

 

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Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

07:41 PM on 07/16/2010

Way to go, Boone! The more that people realize that we can do for ourselves in the energy dept., the more critically they'll also be looking AT the energy dept., because for years and years, people have harped about this, but I guess maybe it takes an actual oilman to DO something about it. Yes, some countries overseas are going to have to find a new way to support themselves besides living off America's fuel bill, but, times are tough all over, and change is always difficult. I think we should get more hopey-changey, and do stuff like making sure there's at least one natural gas filling station in every county, so that people that do choose to operate a natural gas vehicle are assured of some place to actually fill their fuel tanks. Either that, or considering that many homes have natural gas service, maybe the service station can be a professionally installed tap off your house line?