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Pickens Unveils Plan To Revitalize the US with Wind Power

By Jennifer Runyon, Managing Editor
July 8, 2008 | 17 Comments

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New York, United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com] Well-known oil tycoon turned wind developer, T. Boone Pickens, presented a plan at a press conference on Tuesday that he hopes will reduce America's use of foreign oil.

Pickens announced that he is launching a US $58 million ad campaign to educate the American public about the PickensPlan, a blueprint on how the country can, in less than 10 years, reduce its dependence on oil by as much as one-third.

According to Pickens, the U.S. currently uses natural gas to produce 22% of the country's electricity. In less than 10 years, he said that the country can harness enough wind power to generate that 22% of electricity and allow the country to shift natural gas away from electricity generation and put it to use as a transportation fuel. To view a video presentation of his plan, click here.

According to the PickensPlan website, natural gas is the cleanest transportation fuel available today and critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline, according to the California Energy Commission. NGVAmerica says that there are more than 7 million NGVs in use worldwide, but only 150,000 of those are in the United States. Natural gas is significantly cheaper than diesel and gasoline, Pickens said that a gallon costs approximately US $1.50.

At the press conference, Pickens said that it would cost US $10 billion to install natural gas pumps at 25,000 gas stations across the country. He asks Americans to compare that number to the US $700 billion the country spends annually on importing foreign oil.

Replacing natural gas with wind power will also serve to revitalize rural America, Pickens said, and he pointed to Sweetwater, Texas as an example. He said a large wind farm that was built near the town offered economic opportunity that essentially brought the town back to life. The town's population had gone from 12,000 to 10,000 due to lack of jobs but as a result of the wind farm, the population grew back up to 12,000.

In addition to creating new construction and maintenance jobs, new wind farms offer thousands of Americans jobs in manufacturing the turbines and blades, high-skill jobs, Pickens said, that pay on a scale comparable to aerospace jobs.

The goal of Picken's ad campaign is to educate the American public about the country's use of oil and bring the energy question to the forefront of the presidential debate.

Additional Information

Mesa Power, LLP

Other, Wind Power

17 Reader Comments

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1 of 17

stephen-boulet-42137

July 8, 2008

I'm all for the wind power. I'd like to see some analysis done on the effectiveness of using the saved natural gas for transportation to using the wind to charge batteries for transportation. Most charging would be done at night, which is when the wind speed is highest. Such an analysis would have to make projections for battery technology over the next 10 years.

Stephen

Comment
2 of 17

EavetroughBill

July 8, 2008

Energy independence starts in the home. Photovoltaic systems exist today to run our home needs. These systems can be building integrated to provide all the electrical power needed for our homes and auxiliary power for our electric vehicles. The building integrated systems can be designed to blend into the architure of any building or structure. Let us get serious now. Glass roofing pv's, roof shingle pv's or modular pv's on the sides or your house/roof.
Vertical wind turbines look to be more favorable in the cities.

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3 of 17

mike-barz-76110

July 8, 2008

We pay 700 billion a year on imported energy and we can't even pass a 18 billion dollar energy bill. Makes you wonder how were going to switch to natural gas which still puts us in the same sitituation in 20 years. Maybe if we go to electric cars we won't have to worry about any of this in the future. So lets not use the gold fish memory model and be ok till noon. Let's plan for the next 20 years and get off of oil.

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4 of 17

paul-johnson-34828

July 9, 2008

Well stated Eugene. His plan of a big picture approach starting with building the public's opinion is right on.

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5 of 17

mary-saunders-73470

July 9, 2008

ECD Ovonics has peel-and-stick thin-film in production. I haven't seen them mentioned here. Are they under the radar?

Also, what about pipes-under-asphalt, roofs or roads, with heat sent to storage? It's so simple it may not be patentable, hence it would not have much of a push in it, but it's something that could be done first and then sold, without the whole 700-page power-supply-boilerplate to please investors and lawyers.

An advantage of hot-or-cold-to-storage (HoCoSto--I made this up, so attribute it to me if you repeat it) is that is can be reversed to melt ice in winter. At the same time, if water is used, it is available for fire-suppression, if that is needed. Two separate storage areas are established, one hot, one cold, so that if global warming produces odd weather patterns, one just switches the flow.

Communities who pitch together to make such a system can use what they need and sell excess.

See the Economist for a story of this. Heat from the Street was the title of the article. Some of you may have heard me harp on it before here.

I confess to being in sales mode about this idea. It sits in the back of my brain waiting to pop out whenever proposed huge projects easily blown up by native or foreign disgruntled people trigger my boondoggle-defense reflex.

We have a job-creation problem right now. Outside-the-box, low-tech things could keep some of our idle hands from ending up in our infamous over-crowded prisons, before or after actual disgruntled behaviors.

We are all at risk from the disgruntled if we hang out near population centers. Whenever we tip toward a large population of people with nothing to lose, we have the potential to get more of the crime we are so famous for around the world, not that other places don't have this challenge also.

To get change quickly, we need beautiful, fancy, LEED stuff, and do-it-yourself stuff for the less-wealthy, don't we?

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6 of 17

patricia-meeks-6444

July 9, 2008

I'd check anything Pickens says or claims very, very carefully. He played an instrumental part in the election of the current anti-environmental administration (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was his baby) among others. Considering his business and personal history, whatever he proposes would most likely make him the prime beneficiary. He has a lot of power and money, so it would be wise to keep a very close eye on anything he proposes. He's perfectly capable of throwing a wrench in any responsible move towards renewable and energy independence if there is no payoff for Pickens.

Pickens, with his money and reputation, can really influence public and political opinions, steering the science and developments his way. Hoping on the environmental bandwagon has become a populist movement, but the vast majority of opponents and proponents are more than a little sketchy on the details and issues. Pickens has the power to define the buzzwords and issues, so we need to stay very alert as to what he's up to.

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7 of 17

thomas-garven-48003

July 9, 2008

Good post and Mr. Pickens is off to a good start by putting his money where his mouth is. Here is my take on the subject.

1. Wind will be important and we can create giga watts in a short period of time. GM, Ford and others should be gearing up for the production of wind turbines instead of laying off American workers. Can they manufacture them; of course they can. Will they; sure would be nice to create another 10,000 American jobs.

2. Solar is coming along nicely. Nanosolar now has a continuous roll machine [one machine] which can create 1 gigawatt per year at $1.00 per watt. If it was me, I would put 25 of those suckers on line and find 10,000 workers to cover most of our rooftops with panels.

3. Solar thermo is also getting competitive and with molten salt storage is good for several hours after peak use periods. At last count about 150 permits for several hundred mega watts of power are awaiting approval.

4. Let's not forget geothermal. It is much like nuclear since it acts like a base load plant. Base load plants are those that run 24/7/365. We have about 60 currently operating and they can be quickly brought on line.

5. For our cars; I for one can't wait until my local dealership has an electric or plug-in hybrid available. I am sick of the 20-25% efficiency of the Internal combustion engine.

6. And then of course we need bio-fuels, geothermal heat pumps, maybe even coal to oil if we can do it clean and all the other stuff in the works.

BUT what we need more than anything is ACTION. We need to get the NIMBY people on-board. We need to get the government out of the way or at least stop them from putting road blocks in the way of solutions.

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8 of 17

mike-barz-76110

July 9, 2008

Mr. Pickens has it right. Sometimes you just start. Amazing the things you can do if you just start. Renewable energy is all around us and the technolgy exists now. Geothermal ,Tidal, Wind, solar, Solar thermal, Wave, Bio, ect.The energy balance has always been in front of us. So go get um Mr Pickens. It's a start.

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9 of 17

john-hite-76260

July 9, 2008

I have a company in Oklahoma City that provides solar & wind power to homes, businesses & government agencies.

Here is a proposal that might solve the world's oil crisis and the U.S. balance of trade & balance of payment deficits.

Two of the world's biggest battery companies (one being Toshiba & the other being one of the 2 companies GM is evaluating for the battery of the Chevy Volt, I think I read it was CPI/LG Chemical) are now claiming that they can produce batteries with 5 minute recharge time using 110 volt/240 volt standard electricity that can allow a car to travel 300 miles on a single charge (such a distance probably would require several batteries).

If this is true, the world needs to mandate that EVERY GASOLINE powered car & truck built from now on be plug-in vehicles capable of at least 40 miles on a plug in charge. (If batteries can go 300 miles on a 5 minute plug in, we really don't need the gasoline engine at all.) The fuel cost of electric vehicles are 2 cents per mile versus 17 cents a mile for cars powered by gasoline at $3.00 per gallon. (I got that price per mile info from a Congressional energy crisis hearing chaired by Rep Markey of Massachusetts on June 12th, 2008 that was aired on CNN's live daily internet video feeds).

We need to require all future vehicles to list on the EPA sticker both the distance the vehicle can travel on a single plug-in battery charge (at 70 mph) and also the life expectancy of the car's battery. We probably should also make battery replacement easy enough for customers to do it (like a tire change).

There are 4 technologies I can think of that don't require ANY imported oil or biofuels: all electric vehicles, compressed air vehicles, CNG vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. All are viable alternatives to gasoline powered vehicles.

Hopefully what I have read is true & the entire world acts on mandating plug-in hybrids/other alternative fuel cars & trucks immediately!

Comment
10 of 17

eugene-lucas-60935

July 9, 2008

The main value of Picken's plan is that it demonstrates a multi-tiered (attacks the whole problem) approach to the problem, something neither the sitting administration or the two potential candidates seem to have a clue about. It could work; and there are already hundreds of thousands of natural-gas powered vehicles in the world. It's also easy to convert ICE engines to natural gas. Calls for electric cars and hydrogen cars don't consider the realities of existing technology. And scheduling scientific breakthroughs is a risky business strategy.

There are several other comprehensive, multi-tiered, programs that would also work. Developing the 3 trillion barrels of petroleum in oil shale is probably the simplest. Solar and wind could be used to generate electric power, which could retire polluting coal-fired power plants, with the coal then used in clean-coal gasification technology (same logistics as Picken's plan). There's also biodiesel from algae, etc.

Picken's main value is to bring the petroleum cold war being waged against us into sharp focus so that it gets addressed and won. Otherwise we're history.

Comment
11 of 17

lorin-vant-hull-16482

July 9, 2008

Picken's wind fields will need a lot of transmission lines to bring the power home. They also can not provide reliable or 'dispatachable' power due to the vagaries of the wind. A wide distribution will help, as the wind is usually blowing somewhere, but there is a REAL solution. Concentrating Solar thermal Power (CSP) is a proven and reliable means of colecting solar energy to power a utility scale turbine. The heat which is collected at the receiver from the sunlight concentrated there by thousands of large nearly flat mirrors can be stored for use later. At Solar Two (10 MWe generating station near Barstow operated as a pilot plant in the 1980's) molten salt was used to cool the receiver (removing the heat resulting from the absorption of the concentrated sunlight) and was delivered to the storage tank at 565 deg C, or about 1050 deg F. When electricity was requested by the dispatcher, salt was pumped through a het exchanger to produce 550 deg C steam to run the turbine, and then deposited in a "cold" tank at 290 deg C. The tanks were sized to hold enough thermal energy to run the turbine for three hours without any sun, and in a commercial plant the field would be sized to run the turbine and to fill storage on a good spring day. Because of its size, heat loss from the storage system was less than 1%per day. If a 100 MWe solar plant with a larger storage system were matched with a 100 MWe wind turbine field, the distribution line could be 'filled' nearly 100% of the time, and peaking power could surely be guaranteed.
A commercial CSP plant will have an energy payback of just over one year, and I suspect the wind plant payback is even better. Thus, we will have 29 years of carbon free delivery of reliable electricity from each plant pair. And most of the material in each plant can be recyled after its 30 year life is expended.

Comment
12 of 17

steven-mielke-81365

July 9, 2008

It is disingenuous to say that generating 22% of our electricity from wind would allow us to eliminate the 22% generated from natural gas. Natural gas is used largely for peaking power needs whereas wind energy (even if one neglects potential complications from intermittency issues) would be more evenly distributed in time and be closer to baseload generation. Unless Pickens is also planning to develop storage options (which are all quite costly for the time being) wind turbine use on a large scale would only be able to displace a small protion of our natural gas usage.

One obvious consequence of fueling cars with natural gas is that home heating costs would dramatically rise as the demand for natural gas rises.

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13 of 17

rush2112

July 9, 2008

Bush didn't even blink or consider these ideas. Our "game" must be multi-tiered like Pickens says, especially since we purchase between 680-700 billion dollars worth of overseas oil yearly; YES YEARLY!

For (1.5) trillion (it won't be less), we could reestablish a high voltage DC grid with minimal attenuation power delivery characteristics, put in natural gas pumps all through North America and move towards getting rid of our foreign dependance. That's effectively (2) years of our current foreign oil outlay.

Now, capital start up costs are high, but we're spending money to train, build and keep the money in our own economy too! And,....we own the stuff after investment, with little capital costs reoccuring.

We don't need to see and hear about another "AyeToldya" spending 100 million to take lavish and personnel trips on new double-decker airline carriers do we?

Pickens' is thinking long term, obviously to make money too. Pickens' does nothing without a profit incentive,..lets' be real and the guy doesn't have many more years left. But all-in-all,..getting rid of our foreign dependance on oil is the goal, and natural gas vehicles could be "an investment bridge" that would bring the country together, while we build our electric infrastructure and move onto even better technologies for travel - namely electric vehicles. Electric everything is the only logical goal as attained by "various Sun, Wind, & Geo technologies".

Switching to NG for our rides could start the next "Manhattan Project" that we need to restrengthen America; cause' we're drowning literally dying now.

HInt: Don't buy any more SUV's people for "show and tell". Your now looking like fools,..not Yuppies.

All the Best,

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14 of 17

glenn-andersen-47991

July 9, 2008

I love Pickens' idea of replacing natural gas with wind power, but instead of making gasoline out of natural gas, I hope we develop Electric Vehicles that won't need any gas at all, or at least hybrid vehicles that get 60mpg or better. Still, Pickens' plan is a step in the right direction.

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15 of 17

jamie-giannone-72977

July 10, 2008

I like Picken's plan, but keep in mind he not only owns huge wind farms but also Clean Fuels; so he surely has financial motives for his ideas.

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16 of 17

mike-barz-76110

July 10, 2008

Well ,Paul the problem is once you tap into that natural gas reserve the stop watch starts and you always end up out of gas.

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17 of 17

jeff-lanterman-56147

August 6, 2008

I dont think Pickens plan is meant as a permanent measure to end our dependence on oil, it is meant as a stop gap measure that we can do today.

The numbers are soft as to how much natural gas we can save by installing that much wind power but it probably will be a sizeable amount.

It is meant to ease us into a more renewable lifestyle and can be done in a more appealing time frame than other technologies and with alot of the existing infrastructure.

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Jennifer Runyon

About: Jennifer Runyon is managing editor of RenewableEnergyWorld.com and Renewable Energy World North America magazine, coordinating, writing and/or editing columns, ... more »