Readers Homework - Do Your Pickens

T Boone is everywhere today [May 20: Oil to $150 by End of Year] - CNBC, Good Morning America, USA Today - and since our leadership is ignoring the problem.... err solving the problem by suing OPEC and proposing gas tax holidays - he has launched his own website "The Pickens Plan" and a publicly tirade, err campaign. Thankfully he is incredibly rich so he can afford to do this and get the facts out in front of the people. Middle class people in this country with ideas need to either band together in huge groups to aggregate their money, or be left out in the cold. So we need to get the message out to people, because only when they pressure their representatives to a huge degree, does it appear the politicians will bow to the people over the lobbyists. (what a country) As I wrote in May, there is great irony that an oil man is leading the national vision for a move away from oil (of course he has his hands in water, natural gas, and wind so he will profit from the eventual moves but that is just being smart)

When a flipping OILMAN is leading your green movement, you know you have problems of economic incentives and vision by government.

I "got's" me some Pickens videos all over the place and at the bottom is the USA Today story which you can read as well. There are more videos on the CNBC site but I can only embed these on the website. Pop Quiz Friday - do your homework.

• Get ready, America, T. Boone Pickens is coming to your living room. The legendary Texas oilman, corporate raider, shareholder-rights crusader, philanthropist and deep-pocketed moneyman for conservative politicians and causes, wants to drive the USA's political and economic agenda.
• "We're paying $700 billion a year for foreign oil. It's breaking us as a nation, and I want to elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No. 1 issue of the campaign this year," Pickens says.
• Today, Pickens will take the wraps off what he's calling the Pickens Plan for cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade. To promote it, he is bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever "Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.
• Were it a country all by itself, Nolan County, Texas, would rank sixth on the list of wind-energy-producing nations, says Wortham. Year-round wind conditions, the terrain, low land prices and a small population make it an ideal location for wind farms. It already produces more wind-generated electricity in a year than all of California
• Add those operating further west, the Permian Basin region around Midland and Odessa, and the entire area has more than 3,000 turbines operating, producing about 6,000 megawatts of electricity — about equal to the power produced by two to three nuclear power plants. New turbine towers are going up at a rate of three to four a day in the Sweetwater area, Wortham says. "It depends on the (Texas) Public Utility Commission, but the number could be 20,000 ultimately," Wortham says.
• Getting lots more electricity with wind is only half of the Pickens Plan. Increasing wind-power production by itself won't reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil because most of that oil is consumed as gasoline.
• The key, Pickens says, is that wind energy can be used as a substitute for natural gas now burned to generate electricity. That, in turn, will make far more natural gas available for use as a transportation fuel. Pickens' plan is to produce enough wind power within 10 years to divert 20% of the natural gas now used to fuel power plants for use in cars and trucks.
• Powering vehicles with compressed or liquefied natural gas, CNG or LNG, has been Pickens' pet project since the late 1980s.Yet the concept has been very slow to catch on.
• Distribution is a major problem. CNG drivers can, like Pickens, install inexpensive equipment to fill up at their homes. But with fewer than 800 natural gas filling stations around the USA, drivers can't count on being able to fill up wherever they go. So, for the most part, CNG, or LNG, has remained limited to fleet operators, such as local bus companies or big-city police departments.
• Pickens aims to shout down the skeptics by taking his case to the people via his TV ad campaign. If the nation is to break its addiction to foreign oil, a network of CNG stations could be built along interstates and in major cities for a relatively small investment, he says. Some gasoline retailers have told him they would add CNG pumps to their stations once they're certain there'll be enough vehicles capable of running on natural gas to justify costs.
• Washington, Pickens adds, can encourage the move to natural-gas-powered vehicles by providing modest economic incentives for fuel retailers to invest in CNG pumps at their stations, for automakers to build CNG-powered cars and for individuals to convert their existing vehicles to CNG use. (Australia does this, would the U.S. ever be so progressive and forward looking?) And it should continue to provide tax incentives for another 10 years to encourage wind energy's rapid development as part of an overall plan to wean the nation from foreign oil, he says.
  
• "Try everything. Do everything. Nuclear. Biomass. Coal. Solar. You name it. I support them all," he says. "But there's only one energy source that can dramatically reduce the amount of oil we have to import each year, and that's (natural) gas."
• Critics could easily accuse Pickens of advocating a major new public policy initiative that will line his own pockets. He is, after all, a big player in both the wind power and natural gas businesses. Pickens says that while his hedge fund will earn money for its investors, earning more money personally is meaningless: "I'm 80 years old and have $4 billion. I don't need any more money."
• Washington's role, Pope said, should be in setting the goal and clearing roadblocks such as the patchwork of state, regional and federal regulations that block the creation of a true national grid that can shift electricity from anywhere in the country to anywhere that it's needed. (Fat chance!! I mean, "go team"!)

So in my World of Shortages scenarios these are the type of things we need. They are must haves and technological shifts that WILL happen as economic pressures mount. The question is, will we approach these sort of things in REACTIONARY mode (as we do everything else) during CRISIS, or will we ever be proactive on anything in this country? I really don't know but my hopes are not high based on precedent. If nothing else and it did not save us ONE DIME - it would be better to spend the money "in house" (we are the Saudia Arabia of coal, and close to it in natural gas) then sending it to governments who frankly do not like us (I'm not talking about you Canada!)

Anyhow, for those interested Pickens has a company he backs for natural gas for fleets - Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE) - [not profitable] which has not taken off yet since coming IPO. Myself, I've chosen to go the route with Fuel Systems Solutions (FSYS) [very profitable] which makes those conversion kits that many other countries are subsidizing so their population can move from petrol to nat gas. [Jul 2: Bookkeeping: Buying Fuel Systems Solutions for the 3rd Piece of my Alternative Energy Basket]

Again this is an issue that should span political lines - Dems can make it a green issue, Reps can make it a national security issue. Too bad lobbyists are more powerful than the people. Whatever. When oil is $200+ in 2010 (going to $115 first) we can start "working on the solutions in bipartisan fashion" I suppose.

Long Fuel Systems Solutions in fund and personal account