Five reasons Pickens is now as tiresome as Madonna and Britney
It’s official. T. Boone is overexposed. His monotonous TV ad runs on an endless loop, he has testified in front of Congress, he is now appearing on every cable show, and everybody quotes him even though he doesn’t actually agree with anybody but himself.
What specifically bugs me:
- His ads say we can’t drill our way out of this problem, but then he says we should drill everywhere — offshore, Alaska, your backyard.
- He keeps pushing his absurd idea of switching over to natural gas vehicles (see “Memo to T. Boone Pickens: Your energy plan is half-brilliant, half-dumb“).
- His plan shares a great deal in common with Al Gore’s, but he still goes out of his way to diss it (inaccurately, see below): “Gore’s Global Warming Plan Ignores Crippling Stranglehold Foreign Oil Has on America’s Economic and National Security.”
- Sen. Joe Lieberman (I/D/R/?) said the plan is a “classically American message of honesty, determination and can-do optimism.”
- Did I mention he keeps pushing his absurd idea of switching over to natural gas vehicles, even though Russia, Iran and Persian Gulf states have most of world’s gas reserves?
The Gore critique seems to me particularly lame, as if he can’t stand to share the stage with anyone else. Why else release such a petty statement as this:
“Today, former Vice President Al Gore put forward a framework of a plan that is focused on global warming and climate issues. My plan is aimed squarely at breaking the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our country and the $700 billion annual impact it has on our economy. We import 70% of our oil and that number is growing larger every year. Vice President Gore’s plan does not address this enormous problem, it is clear that he and I have two different objectives and our plans should be viewed with that in mind.”
“I believe that elements of any realistic plan to reduce our deadly addiction to foreign oil should encompass the following:
– Will it slash oil imports by at least 30% in 10 years?
– Does it rely 100% on domestic energy resources?
– Does it rely on existing and proven technologies?
– Can it be on line within 10 years?
– Can it be done by private investment?“Unveiled on July 8th, the Pickens Plan will reduce the amount of foreign oil imported by more than one third within the next decade, or $300 billion annually. It focuses on our abundant domestic renewable resources available and would harness extensive use of wind power, a resource the Department of Energy this year recognized can generate more than 20 percent of our electricity needs. This wind energy can replace the natural gas currently being used to operate power plants around the country, and the released natural gas can be redirected and used as a cleaner, more cost effective fuel in our transportation system. Pickens believes the infrastructure can be built by private enterprise within the next 10 years.”
“It’s time for us to take responsibility for the problem we’ve created and act now. The Federal Government should provide the leadership to clear the way for action and private enterprise should build the infrastructure to get it done. Only in that way can we recapture our energy destiny.”
Actually, the Gore plan does move us quickly in the direction of energy independence — and it makes much more sense than the Pickens plan, because “electricity is the only alternative fuel that can lead to energy independence,” and we don’t have enough domestic natural gas to replace a substantial fraction of oil. Also, nobody is going to build out the natural gas fueling infrastructure, since natural gas is not the transportation fuel of the future. And nobody’s going to buy natural gas vehicles absent tens of thousands of fueling stations.
Electricity, on the other hand, is already available almost everywhere. And utilities have a great incentive to build out the rest of the electric vehicle fueling infrastructure. And governments have a huge incentive to promote the transition to a transportation fuel that is inexpensive and can be zero carbon.
But if Pickens is just going to be a pre-Madonna primadonna, the part of his plan that makes sense will, sadly, suffer the same fate as a part of his plan that does not.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Methane from anerobic digesters can run through the same lines that natural gas does–and we have a giant supply of waste we can anerobically digest. Especially with regard to manure, it’s a win-win, as you end up with fiber which can be either used on land or as bedding, and methane which can be used as fuel. Entire towns in Sweden are running all their vehicles on the methane produced by manures anerobically digested.
Have you considered this?
It might be worth upgrading the infrastructure to tap this source.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Mr. Romm,
3rd para. from bottom:
“…Actually, the Gore plan does move us quickly in the direction of energy dependence…”
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Anyone who would spend $3 million of their own money to swiftboat George W. Bush’s opponent for president and then offer a totally bogus 1 million dollar reward to be disproved, would release such a petty statement.
A so-called patriot who never served in the military and yet attacked the honorable service of a Vietnam War hero. That is the character of the person we’re dealing with.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
joyce,
Methane from anaerobic digestion of organic waste is an excellent waste-to-fuel biofuel. It generally doesn’t have the ethical and economic problems of food-to-fuel schemes. However, it can be used more effectively to generate electricity or heat homes than power automobiles. Combined cycle gas turbines are approaching 60% efficiency, with almost no conventional pollutants. Pikens’ wind is better used shutting down coal generation. That scenario reduces GHG emissions and requires no new infrastructure at all.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:18 am
Electricity vs gas:
1) I attended the public night of the Plug in 2008 conference in San Jose, CA. Serious folks, serious companies, and the number of hybrids in the garage, regular or converted-plugin, would gladden Joe’s heart.
I had too many conflicts to sign up for the whole conference. Earl Killian? can you report on it if you attend the whole thing?
2) Good talks from people from Google, EPRI, PlugIn America.
My favorite comment:
car companies have long talked to oil companies, but they’re now learning to talk to electric utilities.
Google (Dan Reicher)
See:
Google.org and especially:
RechargeIT on driving experiments, collaborators. The whole site is well worth exploring, many good resources, usage graphs, etc. Google folks are not fooling around.
3) Among the interesting exhibitors was Coulomb Technologies, which makes smart charging stations.
I’ve worked with some of the key people and they are very good, have shipped a lot of products. Hopefully PHEVS will really start shipping in volume when the car makers say they will. [Silicon Valley has a few charging stations left from the last go-around, but hopefully, PHEVs and better BEVs will really make it fly this time.
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
I checked the RechargeIT web site. Interesting, but they lump the data in such a way that you can’t really tell what kind of mileage you would be likely to get in a medium length commute. It would be much better if they plotted MPG vs length of route, ideally for each kind of route (city, mixed, highway) on a separate graph. This would make it much easier to answer the question, “What kind of mileage would I likely get on my commute?”
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
OK, OK, Joe, I was thinking that you were entirely too harsh on T-Bone until I read that Joe Lieberman (ie America’s Greatest Traitor) agreed with him, now I’m not so sure.
What I would say about Mr. Pickens is this: his ads help get the American People’s attention and break through the nonsense that alternatives like wind are pie in the sky. Thats good and important. We all know that only Nixon could go to China and TBP has street cred as a billionaire oil man and arch capitalist.
What worries me is this: T-Boone’s focus on the liquid fuels problem leads me to fear that he has information that oil scarcity brought on by the peaking of global production is closer at hand than the rest of us think it is, and, really, other than blind faith, optimism and wishful thinking - what do we know?
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm
John:
If you go to methodology, and rummage a bit, they have the data records by day by car. Maybe you can find a usage pattern that fits.
July 24th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Thanks. I somehow missed that part. Unfortunately, the links to individual cars never load–they just time out.