Yesterday I listened to T. Boone Pickens expound on his energy plan for America at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco at a meeting of the CommonWealth club. He’s a great speaker and very funny. His delivery somewhat reminds of my professor, Dr. Suppes at Stanford, another distinguished Oklahoman.
But while it was very amusing, his message is deadly serious. And it lines up with what I’ve heard from every scientist I’ve spoken to recently. The scientists come at it from the unsustainability of our economy and the coming ecologic crisis caused by climate change. Pickens approaches it a little differently, is view is to get America off of its dependence on foreign oil. But they arrive at the same result. America is using a quarter of the oil with 5% of the population and 5% of the oil. And some of our main suppliers like Mexico are running out of oil and will soon be net importers. Project forward, oil prices go way up. Coming off the current economic recession, we could easily see the recovery stalled by rising energy prices. Mapped onto the climate change picture, unless we use less oil and point the way to alternatives, it only gets worse. Pickens’ view is that natural gas is a sensible bridge fuel, until solar and wind can catch up. He also points out that heavy trucks and the like are not feasibly powered using hybrid or battery technologies, and that natural gas is much better there. He sees enormous possibilities in investing in these alternative energy technologies, as well as better transmission grids and electricity storage technologies, both as a solution to the problem as well as providing a lot of jobs and growth possibilities. Asked if his plan really reflected self-interest, he said that he’s doesn’t have that long to live, and is giving his money away anyhow, so there’s no point in trying to make more right now, this is simply his way of helping America. A lot of the focus of the talk was on the problems of educating the politicians (and by extension the people) on the severity of the problem and what it takes to solve it. He gave many anecdotes of his problems in getting through to politicians, from Bob Dole to George Bush. He feels Obama is the first president who at all gets it.
He’s really trying to rally people across the country to join his campaign and create the political impetus to really attack our energy problems. This even more than the economic crisis is our real long term challenge. Right now people are distracted by the crash, but beyond it are much bigger and deeper problems. Pickens is doing the right thing here getting people organized. We all have to do our thing here and ask what we can do to. It’s not only right for the earth and the country, economically it will be to our and our childrens’ benefit as well.
So go out and join the Pickens Plan!
