Why is T. Boone Pickens all over my internet?
I basically get a good vibe from T. Boone Pickens–he’s a Republican oilman, and he backed up the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with a million-dollar pledge to anyone who could prove them wrong (he hasn’t paid out yet.)
But all of a sudden he’s everywhere talking about how we can’t drill our way out of this energy shortage and we need to hook up a wind power grid pronto.
I suppose it’s an attractive man-bites-dog news hook: here’s an oil guy advocating wind and natural gas. Yet I’m really surprised at the degree of media saturation Pickens has achieved. I’m not very knowledgeable of such matters but I strongly suspect the operation of a PR firm getting all these op-eds placed in major publications and all this airtime.
Frankly it seems more than a little heavy-handed. I think the goal of a PR firm is to be subtle enough to where you don’t start wondering “who is getting this guy into every media outlet I read this week? Is he just buying this time to lobby me?”
I’m kind of agnostic on wind power; if it’s really a good thing, some entrepreneur like T. Boone Pickens ought to step up and build a wind farm. (I would support federal legislation requiring all such new wind farm construction to be sited so that it ruins the view of some prominent liberal.) I’m mainly puzzled as to why John Q. Public is suddenly being lobbied about how great this wind power thing is. Whaddaya want, a subsidy or something?
Anyway, it’s quite possible Pickens is being civic-minded and just really believes in this cause and wants to step up and use his money to change public opinion. Nothing wrong with that, and if you’re curious his website is here. There’s also some criticism of the “Pickens plan” at Townhall here–but their editors lose points for not incorporating “Boone-doggle” into the column title.
Of course, the other rather chilling aspect of the Pickens media blitz is this: here’s a prominent conservative who put up money and got personally involved on the Republican side in the 2004 election, who’s now not putting his time and money into getting Republicans elected this cycle but instead is advocating for a single issue. He’s not even pushing that issue from a partisan standpoint. That’s got to lead to an uptick in Maalox consumption at RNC HQ.
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{Post by See-Dubya, in case Mr. Pickens’ PR firm was wondering whom to make the check out to.}
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- Idealab's Back: Bill Gross and Solar Energy | The Foothill Cities Blog
- Tilting At T. Boone Picken’s Windmills : BigMouthFrog
- McCain Would Build 45 New Nuclear Reactors by 2030 If Elected : BigMouthFrog
- Michelle Malkin » Bosom buddies: Nancy Pelosi and Big Wind
- Michelle Malkin » Bosom buddies: Nancy Pelosi and Big Wind
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- Why no Drilling? Nancy Pelosi in Bed with T. Boone Pickens « POLITISITE: Politics from the RIGHT Side of the WEB
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I suggest they build those wind turbines in the halls of congress … enough hot air blowing there to support a couple of cities …
Look into where he has sunk all his money and you will understand why he is pushing his energy plan so hard.
If all the mechanisms used to construct, operate, and maintain any power supply were invisible, inaudible, clean, and odorless, what would the environmentalism extremists, and those they support in congress have to whine about? The only thing that comes to mind is tax inequality of rich vs. poor.
I haven’t posted a whole lot on this particular thread today, other than a couple of exchanges with astonerii. Instead, I have chosen to mostly read others’ postings.
But, I do feel the need, I guess, to ask a couple of questions.
Why is it bad to add wind as a part of a broad approach at energy independence, along with oil, coal, solar, nuclear, etc.?
Even if Pickens is looking to make money off of a shift to developing more use of wind power, why is that bad, given that some of the necessities and luxuries we enjoy today resulted from the same concept of making money off of ideas brought to fruition?
These aren’t smart-a$$ed questions on my part. I’m just looking for serious answers.
I started looking at Pickens’ plan, when I first saw the ads on FNC days ago. I was skeptical then and still remain a little hesitant. But, if wind is a possibility to offset some of our dependence on foreign oil from hostile nations, I don’t want to snub it outright from the get-go.
Seems to me, all too many people here are liberals.
It is great and nice to say, hey, lets do everything. It is another thing to sit down and do the work required to accomplish it all. We have spent billions of dollars on wind, solar, nuclear, electric vehicle research, hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol. The bottom line is that we have hundreds of millions of automobiles in this country right now, today and for the next 20 or more years that use one fuel that is efficient to use, gasoline. Gasoline is made from crude oil. Crude oil comes from drilling, or even from shale oil reserves and oil sands, where it does not come from is producing electricity The current energy problem we have does not come from a lack of electricity, it comes from a lack of American produced OIL.
Now, where else can fuel for the cars we have today come from? Ethanol, but we have already seen the drastic increases in food costs from this fiasco. Natural gas conversion? Possibly, but I have yet to see an efficient way to convert it to a gasoline alternative (LNG is not made for general cars). Coal refinement into gasoline? Possible, but requires vast amounts of heat energy which is wasteful (right now South Africa is making fuel from coal, but the only reason it does so is because of embargoes that were in force during aparthied). When we have enough RESERVES of the real thing, the thing you do is use the reserves as the real thing for the purpose it was intended. That means drill the holes, collect the oil, refine it into gasoline and diesel.
The bottom line is that a few tens of thousands of barrels of oil every day are used to produce electricity, and no amount of freaking windmills is going to do any good to free those measily worthless barrels up for use in your car to get to work, school, concert, movie, beach, mistress’ house or any other place.
Sorry, but this Pickens’ plan is full of crap and is a complete whitewash of what the real problem is. Liberal thinking that energy is fungible. need fuel for your car? Produce electricity from the wind. Well, by all freaking means, please start putting these windmills in your trunk and see how much better your life is.
Sorry, but I am so tired of these flim flam people coming up with worthless ideas and the mass population buying into them so easily. What the hell ever happened to critical thinking and questioning everything, including questioning the truth of 2+2=4. Proove that 2+2=4, do not just count on the fact that someone else got the answer right.
Barry F.
There has been a wind farm containing a massive number of wind turbines along the I-10 corridor going over the mountain pass between Palm Springs and the L.A. basin for somewhere in the vicinity of 30 or more years.
I cannot vouch for how much electricity is generated from them but I would think if they were not proving financially viable they would have been shut down and removed many years ago.
Perhaps AJ can give us some information on them since he is in that part of CA.
First of all your talking about California. Secondly, the majority of the cost is build the wind farm/turbines/transmission lines. Taking it down would just be more money.
Thanks, DL.
I’m hoping AJ is looking at this thread and can tell me more about that particular program.
sambo
The ones I referred to are still working and generating power 24 hours a day in an area that has winds constantly …
I am sure there must be a certain amount of maintenance required to keep them working …
I was simply pointing out that there are obviously areas where wind power as a generating source is viable … I just don’t know how much the hundreds of turbines located there actually produce …
Reliability, you want to have power when you need power, wind is not reliable.
Cost, you want America to remain a strong nation, and a strong nation is built on energy and cheap energy means a more efficient economy that will grow faster and thus stronger, so that means that every dollar you waste on an unreliable energy source that costs more than the alternatives, the weaker you make America.
If you have money, and you are going to spend that money on something, you weigh the pro’s and the con’s of what to buy. You do not throw away your houses food budget on a video game do you? Have you ever taken your college fund to buy a new swimming pool in the backyard? Have you ever gone into a store and told the person at the register that you wanted to pay an extra 20% for something you were buying?
Coal power plants are by far the best we have. They produce lower cost electricity, put almost no polutants into the atmosphere and are not toxic when decomissioned. Most of the wastes they use are converted into useful chemicals.
Hydroelectric is great on cost, but there are limited resources availble in the form of rivers. Although producing energy from tidal forces sounds great, it is hard to imagine that going over well with the public.
Nuclear is awesome, especially with the latest generation plants that do not contaminate water, have gone from rods to pellets and the pellets are free from risk of meltdown.
Wind power is coming down in price, and is only about 20% more costly than the next closest conventional power plants. It is however unreliable, and intermitent which means it will require you to way overbuild or ration energy when the wind does not blow. The problem here is that it ends up being more costly per KWh at maximum out put, which usually actually means that at its nominal output will be 27% of Rated according to tests done in England. That means that you either build 4 times as many windmills as you need, or plan on rationing power to the people on windfree days.
And in the end, with all these problems, what are you really purchassing with that little extra money? A little less Coal used? A little less natural gas used? One less Nuclear power plant? What is the benifit of the expended wealth that you are looking at? It is not going to make oil cheaper. It is not going to improve America’s energy security, as we have enough coal to power America for over 1000 years. The reality is that after you boondogle your way through a bunch of American Tax Payer dollars, you have some windmills that are producing intermittent unreliable energy at a higher cost than a coal powered plant that takes up less land, less power grid lines, less maintenence.
That my friend is what is wrong with adding windmills at tax payer expense to the energy grid. If it is really such a great idea, it would not require much push to get done. It is not a great idea, it is a crappy idea that will sap resources that America should not waste for no real world gain at all.
sambo
And the fact that it is in California means what? …
I can assure you that we have massive solar farms here in AZ that produce some of the electricity for this state …
I can also guarantee you that if the solar technology becomes more efficient and we reach a point in AZ producing more than is needed that other states will want to buy it …
Not every solution is viable in every part of the country … we must take whatever approach is best for each area …
astonerii
Actually there is wind at all times all around the earth … just not always detectable at ground level … ask any pilot, commercial of otherwise, and they will tell you there is always wind once you are off Terra Firma …
I got that. My point is that once you have the wind farm up that would be the large majority of the cost even though the turbines do need maintenance. I can’t find a easy to read chart on the cost (without tax dollars) but I’m still looking.
Okay. So, without another long drawn out post, can you bullet what your plan for energy independence would be for the U.S.?
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
I’m looking for options, whatever they may be.
Desert Lover
Yeah, that is true.
I was a classmate of Boone Pickens at Oklahoma A&M College (Oklahoma State University) 1950-51 where is was an unsuccessful walk-on to play basketball for Mr Iba.
Boone did not make it in basketball but he was a hell of a lot more successful in exploiting his Geology degree than was I (or most anyone else, for that matter). He bootstrapped Mesa Petroleum into a major independent and lost it in the bust of the 80s. He segued into money management, betting correctly primarily on energy, and says that is where he has made more money than in forty years in the oil business.
Count on Boone making money on his wind project. Nothing wrong with that. He has told Al Gore that being “green’ and fretting over “global warming” is waayy on his back burner. What he needs is not money but government help in fighting environmental boondoggle in his wind farm projects.
He was a major player in the corporate raiding circus of the 80s.
He controls water rights to hundred of thousands of acres of the Ogalalah reservoir which underlies the Texas panhandle and will eventually supply water to Fort-Worth, Dallas, Houston and other major Texas cities.
In the past five years, he has donated nearly a half billion dollars to Oklahoma State University for both education and athletics.
Boone does not need more money. His “need” is to make more money. He is 80 years old and has repeatedly said he is getting more satisfaction for seeing the fruits of his labor while he is alive than in piling it up for his heirs and the government.
Don’t be too cynical about Boone Pickens motives. He is just having fun doing good. (I don’t know when or why he stuck that T. in front.)
Whoops. Typo. “He” was an unsuccessful walk-on….
He pimped his plan on CNBC one morning last week. He does own a wind farm in Texas. I assume he will be selling the energy generated to the local power providers., After all…he is a capitalist.
Barry F.
Simple.
1 Build more nuclear power plants immediately.
2 Build some of those nuclear power Plants next to massive coal reserves.
3 Build some of those nuclear power plants in the shale oil rich area.
4 Use nuclear power to turn coal into syn-fuel which has a shelf life of 20 years which is greater than gasoline and diesel by a factor of 10.
5 Use nuclear power to heat the shale oil rock to release the shale oil.
6 Open up all areas to oil prospecting immediately.
7 Pass laws that require environmental lawsuits that fail to proove their case to have repercusions against the environmental group that brought the lawsuit. Penalties should be in the neighborhood of 10 times the cost of defense and 2 times the lost revenue.
8 Immediately give approval for two new refineries.
9 Pass laws that fast track coal mining operations as well as coal power generation plants.
Basically the only reason we are in the situation we are in right now is because for the last 40 years, evironmental freaks have had sway in determining where America gets its energy from. Environmental freaks do not really so much care about the Earth, they just simply hate humans. Thus Envirnmental freaks have always had a problem with every single source of energy humans come up with. Wind and solar, if adopted would become their new enemy, having defeated Oil, Coal, nuclear, and every other sorce we have they would then attack what is left. Your fascination with wind power is simply a weak response to your fear of the Environmental freaks who have thus far not started having serious problems with wind farms, but can you really beleive that they will not turn against it in the future once we are weaned from other sources of energy? Why not build more coal? Because environmental freaks have told you the CO2 they produce is destroying the Earth. Why not more nuclear? Because the Envirnmental freaks successfully destroyed the nuclear power infrastructure back in the 1980’s and 1990’s is why. Why not more drilling? Because, once again, the environmental freaks have told you that it will kill penguins, polar bears, fish, reefs, the entire ocean and thus all life on earth. A little critical thinking would go a long way, if only more Americans could have gotten a good education, we would not be in this mess.
I don’t really have a problem with your bulleted points. I just don’t want to take anything off the table as a possible option, whether it be wind or anything else.
I am all for drilling here and now, the use of coal, the use of nuclear, etc.
Enviro-nitwits don’t even factor in on my thoughts of, possibly, using wind, solar or otherwise.
We just, simply, have to do something, now, to start us on a path to energy independence, using whatever options may prove viable now and in the future. Of course, that is just MHO.
BlackFlag, have you looked into zero point energy?
Conservatives need to follow the liberal logic and say that the earth will be fixed when when THEY produce the technology to be CARBON independant. Till then it is OIL to the WALL.
Astoneri # 113, good ideas all.
I seriously have to agree with astoneri, and a well placed argument they make.
Wind is not a constant, reliable source (the breeze stops blowing sometime), and honestly, the amount generated isn’t enough to really offset the cost of other sources dramatically. If its something that works, sure…i think the idea should be on the table, but, i dont think we should put alot of chips on the table for this one.
There are alot of alternative fuels and energy sources, and I have no doubt there are people hard at work finding a solution. And i cant wait to see what they are at that point.
Good posts, Astoneri.
Barry F.
Dispite all that seems to be known about America, we are not a country with Unlimited Resources. Thus, if coal power is more economical, does not require tax payer subsidies to be competivie, has a fuel source that will last 1000 years, uses less land, causes less invironmental damage, and is a proven reliable always available source of electricity, then every dollar that is taken from a hard working American taxpayer to subsidize a windfarm is 1 dollar too many.
If T. Boone Pickens or anyone for that matter, want to build these windmills, or anything else. I do not have a problem with that at all. The time in which I have a problem is when he is asking for tax dollars to do so. That is all. If on the other hand, he is asking for laws to be passed to protect him from invironuts, I am all for that. If he is asking that tax dollars be spent to transport his electricity to the grid, hell no, sorry, I do not want my government taking any more control of the economy, and I actually want it to freely let loose of some of its control.
That is why I keep going back to the statement that coal is cheap, plentiful, proven. It does not need any government money to work.
Also, we have to remember, the ONLY place that we are not energy independent is fuel for our vehicles. Thus, unless something makes fuel for cars, or replaces cars, it is not going to make us energy independent. We are already electricity independent. We just need to be diesel/gasoline independent now. Windmills do not help here. That is why I have a problem with T. Boone Pickens plan. It does not properly reflect on the need for gasoline and diesel which is what America needs right NOW and for at least 20 more years. In a few years, when it is economically prudent to do so, we will start buying a portion of our fleets of vehicles that either plug into the electricity grid, or use some other power source and we will start using less and less gasoline and diesel. Eventually over the next 20 years or so, we will have a whole new fleet of vehicles that do not require gasoline and diesel.
He wants us to replace perfectly good natural gas electricity with intermittent, ineficient and generally unreliable wind power, take that gas and turn it into LNG, and spend a fortune converting cars to use LNG, spend a fortune converting fueling stations into LNG stations.
The question of why he thinks this is the answer is his wallet. It is not about energy independence. It will not make us energy independent. The only way we become energy independent is if we tap into our own oil.
In the future, yes, it would be nice if alternative powered vehicles become cost effective. Eventually then everyone will buy an alternative energy vehicle and gasoline powered vehicles will become the alternate and phased out over time. But until we turn over our fleet of vehicles, talking about electricity generation in context of energy independence is pointless. Our dependence is on oil. We use almost no oil to produce electricity. Thus electricity production is not a cure for our energy independence.
Sometimes one has to rely on instinct, especially when it generally proves out. I instinctively disliked (and still do) Barbara Walters, Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Richard (tricky dick) Nixon, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durban, and many other public and political figures and news pundits. On the other hand, I instinctively like T. Boone Pickens and therefore believe he has America’s best interests in mind and heart. I think he has all the money he needs and has long since given up trying to screw people in order to increase the size of his bank account…and I doubt if he ever did screw anybody to gain his wealth. I think we should listen to him and believe he is sincere, but not necessarily accept his ideas. Like all ideas they need to be carefully scrutinized.
astonerii
We can take care of the refinery problem by dropping all the enviro-nut regs that caused more than 150 small refineries to close since the early 80’s and then allowing the ones that are still viable to be reopened while more modern ones are built …
People seem to automatically think that “refineries” means “big oil” … wrong … most refineries used to be small facilities that were independent businesses that were privately owned … they were not connected to any of the big oil companies … only a few of those still around …
The ridiculous enviro regs were too expensive for most of them to afford to spend to meet the absurd criteria that were laid on them so they ended up having to shut down …
Combine that with eliminating all of the different blends and produce only one gasoline nationwide …
(They have to shut down and purge the entire refinery before they can produce a different blend to prevent cross-contamination … which means no gasoline is produced while they are shutdown … generally 7 or more days at a time)
DesertLover
Yeah, a bit more compitition would be good. I did not know the extent of the refinery stuff you talk about. Environuts really need to be stopped.
If anyone knows much about this stuff, would it be possible for a California resident that had their house burned down in a no clearing area that was up because of an environmental groups lawsuit to prevent underbrush removal have any chance of winning a lawsuit against the envirnmental group that made the original lawsuit?
Interesting list, because I must agree with each. I would add Al Gore, Lyndon Johnson, Rush Limbaugh (many here will hate me for that one) to the dislike list and Ike, Reagan, Goldwater, Snow, Michelle M. to the like list.
astonerii
Don’t feel like the lone ranger … most people have no idea about those things and the impact they have had on the current situation … I have posted some of this before and others with oil industry backgrounds, current and past, have confirmed what I have said …
For the short term, we do NOT need to revamp our entire energy infrastructure. We need 1 – 2 mbpd ASAP. Our mid term goal should be to have spare production capacity to pick up OPEC’s manipulation of the market. Energy is not the problem right now…it’s fuel.
astonerii said:
Exactly!
We need to get on board.
I hope T. Boone has enough windmills in place to take advantage of all that hot air from his ad blitz. Why is he spending a fortune on ads instead of using the money to build more wind farms? Is there a moritorium on the development of wind energy that he needs the public’s help to get removed? What does he want from us?
Could it be he wants public money to fund his pet projects instead of using his own? If he really thought wind power was economical and dependable, he would fund it himself for profit instead of spending large sums on advertising trying to talk the rest of us into joining (funding) him.
I believe Pickens is talking about this in a run up to his 2000 turbines on wind farms that he’s planning to put up in Texas. He’s doing it in stages of 3, with 667 being put (from what I understand) in Kenedy County, Texas as a start.(Note: This is the 4th smallest county in population in all of the nation.)
I like what Pickens is saying, however I am more interested in making certain that Northeast Montana gets it’s fair share…specifically on land that my family owns…yes, I’m greedy.
Well in Ohio that makes it either Perry or Davis-Besse. If it is the later you should be a lot more concerned.
Davis-Besse has had a history of some of the most serious incidents and safety culture problems in the US. Amongst them the 3rd, 5th and 10th most near disaster incidents. Including the shocking case of a football sized hole in the pressure vessel head that had penetrated 6″+ through 6 1/2″ of steel.
Which resulted in criminal convictions and over $600 million in repairs. Which of course is charged to you Ohioans.
Which brings up what has been up to now the fundamental problem with nuclear power industry in the US. That the cost and performance of the installed technology failed to meet its initial expectations. The cost overruns and engineering problems have made nuclear more expensive then coal and natural gas.
Nuclear cost less to run but in leveled comparisons the high cost to build and maintain have to date made it more expensive per total lifetime kwh produced.
This is not just related to cost of capital from delays in construction caused by jumping through hoops caused by political and environmental group opposition.
Failure of longevity estimates and unidentified system design problems have necessitated phenomenomal costly repairs. Vastly incorrect estimations about future operating, maintenance and decommissioning costs were often made when planning nuclear plants. These necessitated passing huge multi billion charges on to local ratepayers, and often taxpayers directly having to fund unexpected bond issues for pre-privatized era public utility companies.
The nuclear industry holds much of the responsibility for failing to deliver a product that lived up to its financial claims. Some blame also lies with
the lack of effective oversight by our own govt regulatory agencies. Their failure to catch and mandate fixes of many of the systemic problems led to huge cost overruns and the tolerance of substandard engineering and maintenance. This contributed to the negative assessments of the cost, risks to benefits equation.
The final blow to nuclear power in the US was the 1990s transition to a deregulated power market. With the true costs of nuclear power plants finally known, private power companies could not justify the immense long-term costs and financial risks as easily as the previous era’s public utilities could.
It was much more profitable and less risky to save 100s of millions in financing costs and build much cheaper coal and gas fired power plants.
There is hope now though. The govt. subsidized nuclear programs in Europe faced the same financial issues but have created a market where the industry has responded with innovations. The current and next generation of reactors have been designed to address many of the faults that caused such a previous financial boondoggle. If they live up to the claims these plants will be cheaper, more reliable, safer and simpler to operate in the long-term.
Even here in the US some real innovations are progressing that could relaunch the industry. The new generation of Reactors are made of mass-produced components in modular designs that can be installed quickly. It appears they have obtained the heretofore unobtainable holey trinity of cheaper, quicker and better built. Designed as such, these reactors meet requirements that have allowed the regulations to be changed so that operating licensing can be done before the concrete is poured. If built as designed the plant knows it can begin producing power without delay. This means that all challenges to a site can be completed before any capital is spent. This streamlining of the regulatory process is actually good for and supported by all involved including opposition groups.
I remember asking myself why Ross Perot was “All over my Internet”, but it was worse back then because his face would just slowly come up on the screen over the 56k dialup.. And those charts! The never ending charts!! hahaha
~Dan Lee
astonerii,
You make cognizant arguments worthy of consideration why wind and Picken’s interim Natural Gas reallocation for transportation uses is not the way to go.
But you continue to misstate some of the realities of intemittant power genration sources like wind. At the penetration percentages considered for wind or solar there are not any costly barriers.
VARIABILITY OF
WIND POWER AND
OTHER RENEWABLES
There are some factors that must be included into the equation when figuring out how much of existing reserve capacities wind would use. These external costs need to be factored into the total. Just like they are done for any conventional source.
GB National Grid seven year study:
Case in point re “environuts” and the refinery shortage.
I was involved in refurbishing a small refinery in Oklahoma. Built in early 70s, it operated without any environmental problems for over 20 years until new more stringent and unnecessary environmental requirements rendered it unprofitable.
In the late 90s, I joined a group of investors in an attempt to return the refinery to operation. This refinery sits in a rural agricultural area, two miles from any residence, surrounded by a 40 acre berm with capacity equal to ten times the volume of the tank farm.
It is seven miles from any watercourse and there is no drainage from within the berm.
In the course of renovating, a small amount of naptha, estimated at less than one barrel, spilled from a tower onto the concrete pad. Most of it evaporated but some ran off the pad onto grass.
Such minor spills are common. Historically, a wheel barrow load of potentially affected soil was “farmed” by spreading it on the grass within the berm where it disappeared without any consequences.
Initially, the new requirement was that several tons of earth had to be excavated and trucked 600 miles to the Gulf Coast to be incinerated in an approved facility. The estimated cost of this remedey was $850,000, effectively killing the project. Rehabbing was halted for weeks negotiating an alternate solution which still necessitated treating an inordinate amount of excavated soil on site with approved chemicals at a cost of “only” $200,000 to solve a non-existent problem that could have been alleviated by one man with a shovel in an hour.
They’re covering Pickens so heavily in the media for the same reason they used to fawn all over John McCain.
Ok, in all seriousness.. They are giving Pickens some much coverage simply because he agreed with the Democrats Mantra that “we cannot drill our way out of High Oil Prices.”
Of course that’s not the whole reason we need to drill for Domestic oil sources. It’s also about National Security & telling Ahmajenidad & those like him to stick that proverbial oil soaked carrot he’s dangling before America, up his canal.
Besides, as soon as one of Pickens windmills picks off a rare bird in mid flight, they’ll hate him once again & the honeymoon will be over just like it was with the MSM & McCain. They succeeded in using him to keep real conservatives like Duncan Hunter out of the Presidential race. When they are done using people for their purposes, they go back to attacking them. Same old song & dance..
~Dan Lee
From the IEA link provided:
Just to be clear, the whole point of the IEA document is to reduce CO2 emissions to fight the phantom menace of Anthropogenic Global Warming. It serves no other purpose. It does not come up with any economically sensible solutions, it just works to assure governments that they can reduce CO2, but at a cost. A cost to the lifestyles of thier citizens. A cost to thier economic growth, which again is tranfered into a lower standard of living for thier citizens.
Basically all this tells me is that spend extra money for a turbine, spend money on flexible reserve capacity, rebuild the power grid with more money and invent new technology so it can actually function. All this so that we can prevent the burning of some coal, or not build nuclear generating plants.
Actually, the truth is that the only way out of this is to drill. Anyone who uses the words above has no clue what is being talked about or has some alterior motive for saying it. We are not in an energy (generic) crisis, we are in a petroleum crisis.
I stick by my argument, that wind power is not the answer, it is not even an answer, but if you have the money to build a windmill, and can connect it to the grid, and make money off it, by all means do so. Just do not ask American Tax Payers to subsidize your folly.
As a side note, I heard that T. Boone Pickens on CNN said that he supports drilling everywhere. I do not know if he found an antidote to the coolaid he was drinking, or if he was just faking being a environut in order to get the attention of Democratic lawmakers, but if he is serious about that, I will cut him some slack on this current fiasco about him wanting American Tax Payers to subsidize his wind farm. Not that I want in any way shape or form for a single tax dollar to be diverted his way. I am just saying that he regained some of his credibility with me.
We have some wind farms here in Michigan. They are very quiet. Our Democrat governor has identified green energy as a jobs growth sector, replacing the rust belt that has driven this economy into the ground.
I am the CEO of a start up green energy company. We are a fully reporting, non trading public company in the application cycle to get our trading symbol. Our focus is the “poop to fuel” business. Here in the Midwest we have MOUNTAINS of animal waste that can be easily converted into methane gas and that can be used to generate electricty for the farmers to run their farms.
Every time I drive on the interstate and see these mounds of “poop”, it makes me more anxious to get through this FINRA application process and get going on our business plan. Am I a green eco nut? Hardly. However I am an entrepreneur and I believe the timing has never been better to move into these markets.
I am seriously considering approaching Mr. Pickens to invest in our company. We are on the same page in many ways.
Being a Texan, I’ve watched T. Boone
with amusement and delight for many years. I don’t know if his proposals
are going to solve the nation’s pro-
blems or strike us all wonderful, but
one thing I do know, it’s gonna make
T. Boone a lotta money!
NYC sits on the Hudson river & we used to have 2 hydroelectric plants in Manhattan alone. They became “obsolete”
when the dems in charge got behind the Indian Point Nuclear Facility (the dems used to like nuclear power, go figure).
My point? oh yeah, what ever works… wind, solar, installing treadmills at the border… what ever works
As a nurse, I will never, ever be able to hook up and run an IV using wind power. Mr. Pickens will need some plastic tubing (a petroleum product), an plastic IV catheter (a petroleum product) and whatever meds I am running in are usually in a plastic container (a petroleum product). We don’t use glass containers or sharpen/sterilize/reuse needles anymore and I’m not sure how well the IV pump that controls the rate of his medication might work on wind power. Maybe he can solve this dilemma for me.
Mr Pickens is heavily invested in wind power, but the massive subsidies for wind power runs out at the end of this year. If the subsidies end he will lose a bundle of money. This is all a push to renew the massive subsidies and bail out his greedy ass.
Your first assumption is wrong. The IEA document does not make any mention of or deal with global warming at all, it makes no policy judgment only the observation that penetration into the market of new intermittent sources is increasing. It deals with the nature and costs of incorporating wind and other intermittent power sources. You make many valid points in your arguments, but it is disingenuous to say it serves no other purpose than promoting a Anti CO2 global warming policy push.
Its exploration of the costs apply to whatever reason these sources are developed. It apples just as well to the reduction of reliance on imported gas/coal (a bigger deal for Western Europe than the USA) or the replacement of imported oil in transportation, as it would to any move to non CO2 producing sources.
I disagree with you that the costs of integration are that high. There are costs for sure that have to be added to the market cost when incorporating wind. So far in regions with high wind penetration the costs have been low and the existing grid operation has absorbed it without penalties. At 10% penetration of total power capacity the costs are shown to add about 10% to the wholesale price for the portion generated by wind.
That is a pretty low cost. Which is far from your doom and gloom of lowering the standard of living for our citizens and stifling economic growth.
Your other point is worthy of debate though. Is alternative power sources development as a whole economically sensible? Particularly Pickens plan for it to replace natural gas consumption for electricity so it can be used in transportation. Or the investment in replacing oil as our main transportation fuel with vehicles that draw from the electric grid, like electric cars and certain fuel cell systems.
Astonerii, you are right, that this is mostly a petroleum crisis. We are overdependent on a single energy source that comes with some serious economic and national security complications.
I want whatever energy development policy we adopt to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. It has to make sense economically. In an above post Astonerii says:
The cheapest and most cost effective energy in the market has been up to now oil, and specifically foreign oil. With the change in security issues and the structure of the global oil market, we all now realize that there are some other factors that come into this equation of overrelying on oil.
I have no ulterior motives when I question whether we can drill our way out of this. I am a proud conservative, as were my fathers, Exxon executives going all the way back to the 1930s. There just isn’t enough domestic oil capacity to meet our expected demand in the next decades. Let alone the world’s growing demand. We can develop to estimated max pumping capacities all proven reserves and it will reduce some but not end our primary need for Middle East oil. And only reduce imports for a limited time of up to a few decades max. We just do not have the reserves to meet coming demand.
There are unproven reserves also ( oil known or suspected to exist that can not be removed with existing tech or at affordable costs}, but most of these will not be brought online quickly or cheaply to change my assertion.
Our other vast reserve discussed, Oil shale exists. But it is not cheap. It requires a huge cost to convert what is a precursor to petroleum. As far as I can tell, oil’s market costs haven’t yet climbed high enough to make oil shale worth it. And if they do I wonder just how much more attractive electric based or natural gas transportation sources might be?
Sure, Increasing our available oil pumping capacity helps, but it will not be enough to affect the global market price over time. We just can not out pump Opec to affect the global supply enough. And make no mistake about it, no matter how much of our domestic oil we pump, the price we will now always have to pay is based on expected global demand. Drill all we want, but without changing our oil usage means what China and Opec does determines the price we pay for our own oil.
So even if we could commit to increasing supply and break the current oil futures price bubble we might get cheaper oil for a time. More expensive then it has been and not expensive enough to develop oil shale and unproven reserves.
With these factors included it begins to look more and more desirable and economically feasible to make the investments to move off oil. The solution is probably to move to variety of transportation energy sources. Some natural gas, some electric, some that are electric grid sourced like fuel production for fuel cells, probably a minor amount of biofuels as we do not have the benefit of a economically viable agriculture source like Brazil has, and some traditional oil used more efficiently.
The national electric grid will be the key to meeting our needs. We have vast amounts of cheap coal. And as energy prices rise the newest generation of improved Nuclear plants looks like it could become attractive again. Whatever alternative power is feasible to incorporate coal/nuclear/hydro will have to supply 70 to 80 percent of our electricity for the coming decades.
We also have large reserves of natural gas. But I am very cautious of over-reliance on this. Natural Gas prices are now set in a global market just like oil. And there is nothing to stop our domestic production and use being added to the global demand. Pickens greatest financial coup could end up being tying natural gas to transportation and then selling off our domestic gas production to China..
Wind is unreliable, more expensive, and just a waste of resources. There must be a reason that someone wants us to use it in place of coal. What do you suppose that reason is?
thank you.
mister p, if you are still there…please forgive me….Al Gore would have been at the head of my list. Terrible and unforgivable oversight on my part. Best wishes, nuss
He was active in supporting the GOP in 2004, now he isn’t. He is now advocating for a single issue.
Where have I heard this before? Isn’t this how Arianna Huffington lost it? She was a big R until she began her support of the anti-SUV campaign.
OR Maybe T Boone just drank some of that Ron Paul Kool Aid.
T. Boone Pickens isn’t really being “civic-minded” by calling for wind power – what he’s doing is a backdoor trick to gain mineral rights on west Texas land so that he can sell the water to the city of Dallas.
He’s been looking for a way to do this for years. Realistically, he’s among the few who can afford to buy the land and build the windmills necessary for this kind of thing. Lord knows there’s plenty of that land available, too. Once he’s bought the property, Texas law states that he’ll have exclusive rights to the minerals on site. Once upon a time, that would have meant drilling for oil. Now, especially with the ongoing drought in Texas and the increasing demand for water in Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, Pickens sees a profit in harvesting the water from those west Texas lands. Of course, west Texas residents won’t benefit from it, and Dallas will still get water from reservoirs in surrounding counties (where the population is also booming and in need of water). Meanwhile, Pickens will get rich, and no one will stop him.
He’s spent years helping build a Republican base in Texas that won’t question his motives, and the power in the Republican party in Texas has shifted away from rural areas to Houston and Dallas in recent years. Also, there are very few legislators in Texas who really “get” the water problem our state is facing – something Pickens is no doubt counting on, so that no legislative roadblocks keep him from being able to accomplish this. It’s a little fishy that he’s calling for this plan in a non-legislature year for Texas, too.
Gaining all this momentum from television ads, spots on evening news programs, and relentless internet coverage is a smart plan – no doubt people who aren’t from Texas and specifically not from areas that would be affected by Pickens’ plan find it easier to smile and agree with him. But I think serious scrutiny is warranted before agreeing with him.
Someone I suspect wants a windfall government subsidy worth a lot of do re me. T. Boone Pickens is pushing all of this hotair for windfarms. Let’s go nuclear and forget all of this garbage.
desertdweller, you said “…But as an alternative, wind and solar are the best alternates for creating electricity,…” (comment #3). I’m pretty certain you didn’t think it through, but, regardless, wind and solar will never be “best” alternatives, nuclear is much better. It is tried and is reliable and safe. We need to wake up and realize that alternatives to petroleum already exist, nuclear, and yes, coal!
What a mean trick! Using unflattering photos of ones opponents to demonize them!
Michelle Obama
Chris Dodd
Helen Thomas
Barney Frank
Hillary Clinton
What a mean trick! Using unflattering photos of ones opponents to demonize them!
Michelle
Helen
Hillary