11 Apr 2011: Analysis
A New Pickens Plan: Good for
The U.S. or Just for T. Boone?
Three years after unveiling his plan for U.S. energy independence, which won praise from environmentalists for its reliance on wind power, Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is back with a proposal to convert the U.S. trucking fleet to natural gas. But as his new plan gains traction, questions arise over how green it really is.
Remember the Pickens Plan?
Three years ago, with a flurry of national publicity, billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens outlined his vision of how to help wean the U.S. off imported oil. The crux of the plan was to build a massive, $1 trillion network of wind farms stretching from Texas to North Dakota, which would replace domestic natural gas used to generate electricity. The excess natural gas would then be used to power millions of American trucks and cars, thus freeing the U.S. from the shackles of OPEC oil.
Even some environmentalists swooned over the Pickens Plan, with Carl Pope, then executive director of the Sierra Club, saying, “To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.”
Bloomberg
T. Boone Pickens and his plan have received a boost from President Obama.
Now, however, Pickens and his plan are back, although the Texan’s new version is a good deal less green, considerably more dependent on controversial methods of extracting natural gas, and focused tightly on a single immediate goal: converting 8 million of the U.S.’s largest trucks, including its 18-wheel, tractor-trailer rigs, from diesel fuel to compressed natural gas.
In the past two weeks, Pickens and his plan have gotten a boost from none other than President Obama, who in a March 30 speech on energy security praised Pickens’ goal of expanding the use of natural gas in the nation’s transportation sector and called on members of Congress to support legislation that would increase the extraction and use of natural gas “in a safe, environmentally sound way.”
Last Thursday, at Pickens’ urging, a bipartisan group of 76 members of the House of Representatives introduced a bill that would provide tax credits of up to $64,000 per truck or vehicle to convert the nation’s large trucks and corporate and government fleets to compressed natural gas. Pickens predicted that the bill would receive more than 300 votes in the House and could pass as early as May, before moving to the U.S. Senate, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has voiced support for Pickens’ new plan. The nation’s truckers are keeping a close eye on the legislation, saying much would depend on the size of the tax credit. Pickens repeatedly points out that recent events, including soaring oil prices and instability in the Middle East, have considerably strengthened his case for turning to natural gas as a way of breaking U.S. addiction to foreign oil.
With momentum building for the Pickens Plan, Part 2, the question is whether it is good for the nation’s energy security, good for the environment, or just good for T. Boone Pickens. Some transportation and energy experts say that the new Pickens plan indeed has merit and — with a significant caveat — is worthy of support. But other energy experts and environmentalists say it is a misguided attempt to impose a single “silver
It was probably inevitable that Pickens would not remain the darling of environmentalists.bullet” solution on the transportation sector and commits the U.S. to a long-term embrace of fossil fuels.
“It was a big disappointment when T. Boone Pickens walked away from the wind side of his plan,” said David Friedman, research director for the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “He kept saying that this wasn’t about private interests, it was about the nation and the world. But to dump the part that actually had the greatest potential to cut global warming and pollution and help create new jobs in the U.S., in favor of the piece that really does most benefit his bottom line, was a disappointment.”
Although many environmentalists heaped accolades on Pickens when he announced his plan in 2008, it was probably inevitable he would not remain the darling of the environmental movement for long. At heart, Pickens is an oil and gas man whose fortune and business interests are grounded in fossil fuels. As a founder of Mesa Petroleum, he made billions in the oil business, starting in the 1950s. Today, he heads BP Capital, which invests in the oil, gas, and energy sectors.
In a recent meeting with reporters at Yale University, Pickens made it clear that he remains an enthusiastic booster of hydrocarbons, that he doesn’t foresee a transition to renewable energy anytime soon, that he isn’t convinced about human-caused global warming, and that he certainly doesn’t believe that hydrofracking — a controversial practice that extracts natural gas from shale — poses any serious environmental risks.
“You’re stuck with hydrocarbons — come on, get real,” Pickens, the 82-year-old Oklahoma native blessed with a silver tongue and a self-deprecatory, down-home charm, told the reporters. “I’ve been in meetings before where somebody says, ‘I want to cut out all coal-fired plants and go to wind.’ What are you talking about? I mean you’d run the price of electricity 10 times what it is [now]. Realistically you’ve got to use coal and you’ve got to use oil and, no, I don’t approach it from an environmental standpoint. But my record is good on the environment.”
When I asked Pickens whether human activity is causing the planet to warm, he replied, “I’m not saying that we’ve gone that far, but I’m saying we have caused some problems... I think we screwed around with the thing. I don’t know what we’ve impacted, but I’ve seen enough that I believe that we
At heart, his plan was not about going green, but about breaking our addiction to imported oil.have messed up some things.”
Pickens’ proposal has struck a sympathetic chord across the political spectrum, for reasons of both economic and national security. At heart, his plan was never about going green, it was about breaking our addiction to imported oil, and as far as Pickens is concerned, anything that helps end that addiction – natural gas, wind, solar, corn ethanol — is okay by him. “Anything American, I’m for,” Pickens told a large and enthusiastic crowd at Yale University Law School last month.
He said his plan to help jump-start the nation’s wind energy industry fell victim to a simple economic truth: with the growing exploitation of natural gas reserves trapped in underground shale formations, natural gas prices have fallen to the point where wind power is not economically competitive, especially considering the cost of connecting wind farms to the national electricity grid. In 2009, Pickens put on hold his own plans to create a giant wind farm in West Texas, and he is now in the process of selling roughly 250 turbines from his proposed project to other North American wind farms.
Pickens has now shifted his hopes of ending America’s dependence on foreign oil — at least in the next several decades — to the country’s abundant natural gas supplies. His arithmetic is simple. He argues that if a concerted effort is made to shift America’s 8 million tractor-trailers and large trucks from diesel to cheaper compressed natural gas (CNG), the U.S. can largely end its dependence on OPEC oil within a decade. (He refers to OPEC as “the enemy,” since Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have channeled money to Islamic fundamentalists.) By converting government and business fleet vehicles, and even some cars, to natural gas, Pickens says the country can begin to reduce oil imports from non-OPEC countries. “If we miss this opportunity,” he told the Yale audience, “all of us will go down in history as the dumbest crowd that ever came around.”
The House bill introduced last week would cost the U.S. treasury roughly $3 billion to $4 billion in tax credits for converting millions of trucks to natural gas, Pickens said, contending that the shift to CNG trucks and a national CNG fueling infrastructure would be a powerful engine of job creation. Pickens also is urging Obama to issue an executive order mandating that in the future all new federal vehicles run on domestic energy supplies, which Pickens says would further speed the transition to natural gas vehicles.
Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, said he supported Pickens’ plan and the government tax credits. “Should have done it ages ago,” Smil said in an email interview.
Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the nonprofit government watchdog group, Public Citizen, said that even though Pickens is promoting an energy program that would be “enormously beneficial to his fortune,” the plan to convert the nation’s heavy trucks to compressed natural gas has
The problem is that much of the natural gas Pickens is counting on would come from fracking.some merit. Large tractor-trailers are too heavy to be powered by electric engines, and natural gas does burn more cleanly than diesel fuel, Slocum said.
The problem, said Slocum, is that much of the natural gas Pickens is counting on to power the U.S. trucking industry will come from the hydro-fracturing, or fracking, of shales — a process in which a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is forced at high pressure deep underground to free natural gas trapped in shale formations. An increasing number of reports by the media and state regulators indicate that fracking, if poorly done, can contaminate water supplies.
Slocum said the only way the government should support the conversion of heavy trucks to compressed natural gas is if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency begins to strictly regulate fracking under the Clean Water Act; fracking was exempted from the act under legislation passed in 2005 during the administration of George W. Bush. Federal oversight is particularly important, Slocum said, because state environmental agencies are overwhelmed trying to monitor pollution emanating from the fracking boom sweeping much of the U.S.
“I think natural gas has huge advantages if extracted in clean ways, and that is going to entail federal regulation,” Slocum said. “The national security issue of importing 65 percent of our oil is significant. But so are issues of drinking water contamination in a large number of states.”
In his Yale speech, Pickens said that water pollution from fracking is “not an issue” because the shale deposits are far below aquifers. “I do not know of any problems with freshwater aquifers being damaged by hydrofracking,” Pickens said.
Other transportation experts chiefly object to Pickens’ latest plan because it uses government policies to promote a specific technology, rather than leveling the marketplace to enable a host of potentially effective transportation and energy technologies to emerge.
“In general, I do not look fondly upon these technology winner-picking adventures that have been, and continue to be, a hallmark of America’s failed energy policy,” John M. DeCicco, of the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, said. “The U.S. transportation energy market is way too huge to create a business case for anything through taxpayer subsidies.” Citing the synthetic fuel initiative of the Carter administration and other U.S. policies, DeCicco added, “How many times does the country have to get it wrong before realizing that such approaches don’t work?”
MORE FROM YALE e360
A High-Risk Energy Boom
Sweeps Across North America
READ MORE
The fundamental problem, Friedman said, is that Pickens’ plan ultimately represents a “stranded investment,” pumping many billions of dollars into a compressed natural gas technology that will eventually be phased out in favor of more sustainable, long-term transportation alternatives: electric vehicles, hydrogen vehicles, biofuel- or algae-powered vehicles, or a new technology altogether. For now, he said, a better approach would be to pass tax credits that would reward the trucking industry for reducing emissions, either through designing more efficient trailers, developing hybrid trucks, or improving the efficiency of diesel engines.
Pickens has heard these criticisms before, and as far as the former wildcatter is concerned, it’s time to quit talking and start acting. “With the Mideast in turmoil, you go to sleep at night and you don’t know what you’re going to get in the morning,” he said. “The solution is to get on your own resources.”
Video: The New Pickens Plan
POSTED ON 11 Apr 2011 IN Business & Innovation Energy Energy Policy & Politics Policy & Politics Europe North America
ABOUT THE AUTHORFen Montaigne is senior editor of Yale Environment 360 and author of the recently published book, Fraser’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, and other magazines. In a recent article for e360, he wrote about the consequences of a warming Antarctica.
Recommend
Tweet
Reddit
Email
Print
Stumble Upon
ShareRELATED ARTICLES
Probing the Reasons Behind
The Changing Pace of Warming
A consensus is emerging among scientists that the rate of global warming has slowed over the last decade. While they are still examining why, many researchers believe this phenomenon is linked to the heat being absorbed by the world’s oceans.
Can a Divestment Campaign
Move the Fossil Fuel Industry?
U.S. climate activists have launched a movement to persuade universities, cities, and other groups to sell off their investments in fossil fuel companies. But while the financial impact of such divestment may be limited, the campaign could harm the companies in a critical sphere — public opinion.
An Advocate in Pursuit of
Environmental Justice at EPA
Matthew Tejada is taking over the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice after helping low-income communities in Houston fight air pollution in their neighborhoods. He talks to Yale Environment 360 about how his work in Texas prepared him for the challenges of his new post.
A Conservative Who Believes
That Climate Change Is Real
Republican Bob Inglis’ statement that he believed in human-caused climate change helped cost him his seat in Congress. In a Yale Environment 360 interview, Inglis explains why he is now trying to persuade his fellow conservatives that their principles can help save the planet.
Should Polluting Nations Be
Liable for Climate Damages?
An international agreement to study how to redress developing nations for damages from climate change illustrates how ineffective climate diplomacy has been over the last two decades. But this move may pave the way for future court suits against polluting countries and companies.
MORE IN Analysis
True Nature: Revising Ideas
On What is Pristine and Wild
New research shows that humans have been transforming the earth and its ecosystems for millenniums — far longer than previously believed. These findings call into question our notions about what is unspoiled nature and what should be preserved.
Probing the Reasons Behind
The Changing Pace of Warming
A consensus is emerging among scientists that the rate of global warming has slowed over the last decade. While they are still examining why, many researchers believe this phenomenon is linked to the heat being absorbed by the world’s oceans.
Blocked Migration: Fish Ladders
On U.S. Dams Are Not Effective
Fishways on rivers in the U.S. Northeast are failing, with less than 3 percent of one key species making it upriver to their spawning grounds, according to a new study. The researchers’ findings provide a cautionary tale for other nations now planning big dam projects.
The Scientist as Guardian:
A Tool for Protecting the Wild
An expanding body of evidence shows that the presence of field biologists and their assistants is playing an important part in deterring poaching, illegal logging, and other destructive activities in the world’s parks and wildlife reserves.
Giant Sequoias Face Looming
Threat from Shifting Climate
The world’s largest living species, native to California’s Sierra Nevada, faces a two-pronged risk from declining snowpack and rising temperatures. The threat to sequoias mirrors a growing danger to trees worldwide, with some scientists saying rapid warming this century could wipe out many of the planet’s old trees.
Biodiversity in Logged Forests
Far Higher Than Once Believed
New research shows that scientists have significantly overestimated the damage that logging in tropical forests has done to biodiversity, a finding that could change the way conservationists think about how best to preserve species in areas disturbed by humans.
Will Reform Finally End The
Plunder of Europe’s Fisheries?
Maria Damanaki, Europe’s crusading fisheries minister, is making major headway in changing a cozy, “old boys” network that over-subsidized the European fishing industry and brought about the severe overfishing of the continent’s marine bounty.
Mercury’s Silent Toll
On the World’s Wildlife
Scientists are only beginning to understand the impacts of mercury contamination on birds, fish, and other wildlife populations. But what they are finding is alarming — even low levels can cause harm, and chronic exposure has unexpected and troubling effects.
Black Carbon and Warming:
It’s Worse than We Thought
A new study indicates soot, known as black carbon, plays a far greater role in global warming than previously believed and is second only to CO2 in the amount of heat it traps in the atmosphere. Reducing some forms of soot emissions — such as from diesel fuel and coal burning — could prove effective in slowing down the planet’s warming.
Without Congress, There’s Still a
Path to U.S. Progress on Climate
Don’t expect the U.S. Congress to take any action on climate change in the next four years. But by continuing to use its regulatory authority and working with the states, the Obama administration can make significant progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
RELATED e360 DIGEST ITEMS
21 May 2013: Large Majority of Americans
Believe Global Warming Should be a Priority
21 May 2013: Interview: For Solar Sisters,
Off-Grid Electricity is Power
20 May 2013: System Converts Pig Waste
Into Biogas at Chinese Pig Farms
17 May 2013: ‘Artificial Forest’ Nanosystem
Mimics Photosynthesis, Researchers Say
16 May 2013: Scientist’s U.S. Road Trip
Reveals Unexpected Methane Emissions
13 May 2013: Project Looks to Quantify
Power Emissions Through Crowdsourcing
09 May 2013: Third Coal Export Proposal
Falls By Wayside in Pacific Northwest
07 May 2013: Battery-Equipped Wind Turbine
Better Integrates Green Energy Onto Grid
06 May 2013: Solar-Powered Airplane Finishes
First Leg of Coast-to-Coast U.S. Trip
03 May 2013: Seawater Energy Technology
Is Focus of Pilot Project in China
Yale Environment 360 is
a publication of the
Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies.
SEARCH e360
CONNECT
Twitter: YaleE360e360 on Facebook
Donate to e360
View mobile site
Bookmark
Share e360
Email newsletter
Subscribe to our feed:
ABOUT
About e360Contact
Submission Guidelines
Reprints
e360 PHOTO GALLERY
South African photojournalist Adam Welz documents the harrowing relocation of six white rhinos to a region that has lost all its rhinos to poaching. View the gallery.
DEPARTMENTS
OpinionReports
Analysis
Interviews
e360 Digest
Podcasts
Video Reports
TOPICS
BiodiversityBusiness & Innovation
Climate
Energy
Forests
Oceans
Policy & Politics
Pollution & Health
Science & Technology
Sustainability
Urbanization
Water
REGIONS
Antarctica and the ArcticAfrica
Asia
Australia
Central & South America
Europe
Middle East
North America
e360 VIDEO
A Yale Environment 360 video explores Ecuador’s threatened Yasuni Biosphere Reserve with scientists inventorying its stunning forests and wildlife. Watch the video.
e360 MOBILE
from Yale
Environment 360 is now available for mobile devices at e360.yale.edu/mobile.
e360 VIDEO
In a Yale Environment 360 video, photographer Pete McBride documents how increasing water demands have transformed the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the arid Southwest. Watch the video.
Top Image: aerial view of Iceland. © Google & TerraMetrics.
e360 VIDEO
The Warriors of Qiugang, a Yale Environment 360 video that chronicles the story of a Chinese village’s fight against a polluting chemical plant, was nominated for a 2011 Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Watch the video.
OF INTEREST
COMMENTS
And don't forget that Pickens is on the Board of Directors of a company called Clean Energy, of which he is co-founder and in which he has substantial holdings:
http://www.cleanenergyfuels.com/main.html#
Clean Energy describes itself as, "The leading provider of natural gas fuel for transportation in North America, Clean Energy is the smart decision for vehicle fleets demanding the most reliable connection to CNG and LNG."
According to this site, http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=22250, Pickens' relationship with Clean Energy (as of 2008) was as follows:
T Boone Pickens initiated holdings in Clean Energy Fuels Corp.. His purchase prices were between $14.71 and $18.93, with an estimated average price of $16.7. The impact to his portfolio due to this purchase was 0.43%. His holdings were 392,518 shares as of 12/31/2007.
Clean Energy Fuels Corp. provides natural gas as an alternative fuel for vehicle fleets in the United States and Canada. It designs, builds, finances, and operates fueling stations and supplies compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has a market cap of $688.85 million; its shares were traded at around $15.58 with P/S ratio of 5.93.
Pickens is not concerned whatsoever with the environment -- he's concerned with his still-growing bank accounts. He's also a big investor in the Alberta tar sands oil. He could not care less about climate change either.
Unfortunately he has convinced the media and most of Congress that we should spend billions transforming our automobiles to run on natural gas and he has also convinced most politicians that natural gas is "clean" and that there is an endless supply. We need to stop listening to billionaire oil men and seriously invest in renewable energy as a country!
As for transportation, we need more trains. Forget cars that run on natural gas. It's just another way for T. Boone Pickens to leave his grandchildren another billion or two.
Mr Pickens is not a stupid man. Wind power must be paired up with natural gas generators when attached to the grid since the energy cannot in the forseeable future be stored at a significant level and the smart grid is still just an expensive dream. The more wind plants built, the more we rely on natural gas. Add trucks to the equation and we become ever more dependent on this fossil fuel - climate change be damned.
We need it all. We need the energy from every available source to become self reliant. We need to be smart and efficient about our consumption of energy. We need to protect our home planet for our own good.
My main concern about hydro-fracturing is that the process forever removes about 1MM gallons of fresh water from the surface of our planet. The lack of available fresh water will be the new crisis of our near future.
There are processes available for processing the fracking water to extend the useful life and even for extracting fresh water from the billions of gallons of brine produced by our oil and gas processes everyday. It is time for the Oil and Gas industry to embrace the technology and replenish the surface of the earth with fresh water at least equal to that which is being consumed.
A revolutionary breakthrough in cost-competitive green energy has opened a door to superseding the need for all fossil and Uranium fuels much faster than might be believed by almost anyone.
See Cold Fusion at www.aesopinstitute.org to learn more about it than you probably want to know.
This appears to be a Black Swan, a highly improbable energy event with huge implications.
So now we're going to poison our water to fuel our cars and trucks? To blight the landscape with hundreds of thousands of drilling rigs? And all this in the face of much evidence that in the long run fracking is not even economically viable -- that the wells are depleted before the original investment is paid off -- that the true cost of drilling site cleanup and the millions of gallons of water used would make the cost exorbitant, if the industry had to pay these...(that is, if costs weren't secretly subsidized, i.e. "externalized")...
Rather than look for new ways to fuel our fleet of trucks and cars (indeed, nothing really replaces petroleum), it's time to look beyond mass motorization to restoring our once proud rail and trolley system, to relocalizing agriculture and industry, and to rebuilding walkable cities. Anything else is just a pipe dream or a get-rich-quick scheme.
I think Pickens is going the right way, but what he should also be promoting is a more efficient use of the natural gas that we do have.
Today 20% or more of all the natural gas consumed is being blown up chimney's across the country as HOT exhaust into the atmosphere. The technology of "Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery" is designed to recover the heat energy from the waste flue gases, so that it can be further utilized in the building or facility.
Natural gas can be used so efficiently that COOL exhaust is then vented into the atmosphere, and WATER is also being created from these combustion gases. Do not waste the water! Have you ever seen combusted natural gas irrigate the lawns and flower beds?
The DOE states that for every million Btu's of energy recovered from these waste exhaust gases, and utilized ~ 118 lbs of CO2 will NOT be put into the atmosphere.
How many Btu's are consumed hourly across this country?
A Pickens plan to move the cargo on railways and get rid of the 18 wheelers would be a lot more constructive.
Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the nonprofit government watchdog group, Public Citizen, said that ... Large tractor-trailers are too heavy to be powered by electric engines.
Obviously he's never looked under the hood of a 100-ton railroad locomotive and seen the electric motors that drive the wheels. Not to mention that the ocean liner Queen Mary 2 uses electric motors to drive its four giant propellers.
Trailer trucks running on natural gas is the lesser evil, when compared to running them on diesel. As others have pointed out, the preferred solution would be to use electric trains to move cargo over large distances; this uses approximately 15% of the energy semi-trailers use.
The 64 billion dollar question is, why does the right-winger Pickens want the government to subsidize the conversion of trucks and other costs? You'd think this would be anathema to his ilk.
For a comprehensive view of the effects of the Pickens Plan go to: http://www.steelinterstate.org/topics/why-not-convert-trucks-natural-gas
Also don't forget ol' Boone "owns" the Ogallala aquifer and was stymied in his plans to pipe it to Texas and sell that water to cities there. Then he tried to tie the pipe line to his wind power transmission line as a way to get around the rules. That didn't work out for him either so he ditched the tubines and now he's sitting on a huge resource and no way to sell it. Enter natural gas, fracking, the rivers of water that fracking needs and Boone, that old oil and gas man, with all that sub-surface water just waiting for a buyer.
Then there's all that government money. There were subsidies for the wind tubines and the gov.'ll be paying to convert all those engines to natural gas. And the energy from the turbines and the energy for the vehicles, it'd all be courtesy of Boone.
Bonus is, you can toss on the cloak of patriotism and the crown of green and have people saying good things about you for a change. Foolin' some of the people some of the time.
Surprise -- T. Boone Pickens doesn't care about the environment and doesn't care about global warming. He has said he does not even like the "Greenies". So much for saving the world.
In fact, he invests heavily in Canada's tar sands oil. You've been duped, if you believed he was for clean energy. He's for energy that makes him richer.
I have written about T. Boone Pickens quite a bit at futurismnow.com
Trucks should get off the roads and/or transfer to hybrid gas/electric power. We don't even need 18-wheelers. Did he mention that?
It appears most of the comments are expressing a preoccupation with the motives of Pickens, or expressing the ideal (trains going from and to everywhere) but not dealing with the facts at hand.
Some facts that I believe matter....We have trucks moving almost all of our commerce in NA. Today the price of NG as a fossil fuel is stupid cheap, so much so that it is being burned off at production sites around the world. Burning NG produces roughly half of the CO2 of petroleum. By creating demand for NG, we raise its price to better reflect and respect its long term value, and it becomes economically viable to recapture almost all NG at production site. And, as Pickens says, yes, we really do lower our dependence on imports.
America is strangled by regulations. The Big Business guys ask for regulations that will create barriers to entry. They kill competition. The Big Government guys ask for regulations that will give their constituent organizations a bigger handout and more oversight (read "power").
America is being whipsawed by the same false Fascism v. Socialism dichotomy that was being made when FDR was elected. Pickens understands the game, and he is not afraid to appeal to both sides as it suits his agenda. Most likely, his true agenda is to produce energy for a profit.
Wow. Lots of strange and bizzare accusations and not much substance in the comments. "Fracking". the venacular for hydraulic fracturing (of the reservior rocks) has been around for decades. it isn't any thing new or mysterious. The technology and the application have improved but the concept is largely unchanged. The ascertain that the process removes forever 1MM gallons of freshwater from the surface of the planet is absurd.
The energy density of crude oil is much higher that that of natural gas. The closer that a product is to crude -petrochemically- the more effcient it is as an energy source. Hence diesel is a much better fuel than say gasoline producing more net energy per unit volume.
Natural gas has been flared as waste product for decades or used on site for service fuel simply because the volumes are so limited and the costs for transporting it from the well so high that there is never a payout. Moving natural gas from well head to market requires an entirely different infrastructure than moving crude over existing infrastructure (trucks and roads). Natural gas requires pipeline, new right of ways, compressor stations and so forth.
William is right when he says that America is being strangled by regulation. It's a growth industry. The only thing which changes with elections are the names of the pigs at the trough. I take exception to the Facism v. Socialim comment though. There is no difference between the two other the the number of pigs who benefit. Either way America liberty looses
There is value in pursuing natural gas but only if the suppliers are not exempted from the clean water act, clean air act, & super funds. If natural gas suppliers are truly responsible they will take a pass on the exemptions conservatives have given them on these laws to demonstrate to America that they actually do have concern for doing things the right way.
I would like to revisit Mr. Pickens wind farm idea. The biggest drawback is that windmills have to be constructed where the wind blows, not all areas of America are equally blessed with strong winds near large metropolitan areas. However, there is a means to get around this build the turbines higher even MILES high. Of course this would be price prohibitive with ordinary construction methodologies. But, I was just reviewing an article on Physicist Robert L. Forward's Space Fountain. This structure does not depend upon material strength to build tall structures but rather is a device which has as its characteristic that it can support a structure of any height! This point is very significant because, not only can it potentially be used for future space flight, but could also be used for energy generation by allowing wind turbines to erected anywhere one is needed by taking advantage of near constant high speed winds at higher altitudes which are available anywhere.
Please, see the following links for further information:
Space Fountain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_fountain
http://orbitalvector.com/Orbital%20Travel/Space%20Fountains/Space%20Fountains.htm
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030714/orbital_railroads.shtml
Just add wind turbines!
DJ
On April 15, 2011, Dean questions the statement he attributes to Tyson Slocum that... Large tractor-trailers are too heavy to be powered by electric engines. When I have heard Boone Pickens discuss this, he has said that tractor-trailers are to big for "the battery," which is a more accurate way of stating the problem.
Tractor-trailers could be pulled by electric motors, but with current battery technology, they could probably only go a few miles before they would require charging. The charging would likely take several hours to complete.
Modern locomotives do indeed use electric motors to drive the wheels. But where does the electricity to power the electric motor come from? If you look "under the hood" a little longer, you will see that there is a diesel engine, obviously powered by diesel fuel. The mechanical energy from the diesel spins an electrical generator which in turn powers the electric motors. It is done this way because it is a more practical solution for getting a train moving from a dead stop than some sort of transmission that applies the mechanical energy from the diesel engine directly to the wheels of the locomotive.
I always thought that the primary focus of the Pickens' Plan was about not sending a few hundred billion dollars per year to other countries. Converting part of our nation's energy production to a renewable source was a great bonus. I disagree that Mr. Pickens is modifying his plan so as to maximize his profits to some obscene level. I think he modified the plan that he can achieve his primary goal without going broke. It is unfortunate that with the hundreds of billions spent on the so-called stimulus, that it did not include money for the infrastructure needed to get electricity from Mr. Pickens' wind farm to the grid.
I blame the very people who claim to crave clean energy. Too many of them are so angry that Mr. Pickens' might actually profit from converting 20% of the nation's energy production to wind, that they derided the plan and effectively killed it.
In my opinion, the benefit to the USA of keeping those hundreds of billions of dollars per year inside our borders are enormous. So much so that we really shouldn't be quibbling about such things as whether we should convert tractor-trailers to CNG or use more trains.
Comments have been closed on this feature.