The Smell Of Snake Oil In The Wind

T. Boone Pickens, as Thomas Boone Pickens likes to be called, has been all over the media recently with his Pickens Plan.  The wealthy oil man and former corporate raider is touting himself as the country’s energy crisis savior and global warming re-mediator, or as it would seem, all around American hero.

Pickens has had a long, mostly successful run, and according to an article by Karen Breslau in the current issue of Newsweek has a personal worth of approximately $3 Billion.  Now Pickens, it seems, wants everyone to know he has seen the future, and in the future oil, particularly foreign oil will not be as readily available as it seems to be today.  No kidding.  According to Pickens his Pickens Plan will rescue us all and will work like this: he will lead the investment of $10 Billion to build the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas panhandle by erecting 1,700 to 2,000 wind turbines producing up to 4 gigawatts of electricity.  The wind fueled electricity would then replace the need to generate electricity by burning natural gas, and that would free up the natural gas to be used to fuel automobiles converted to natural gas.  Thus reducing our dependence upon foreign oil and reducing motor vehicle emissions (natural gas burns cleaner than gasoline).

While Mr. Pickens comes across in his television spots as sincere, knowledgeable and committed, he also avoids discussing all of the facts that are relevant to his proposal.  While Pickens’ wind farms might account for fueling 20% of our electrical power plants that are currently fueled by natural gas, at a very nice profit to Mr. Pickens, they will have no bearing on the 100 coal burning plants that produce 57% of the nation’s electricity. Coal fired furnaces are by far much more deadly to the atmosphere and living organisms than the gas fired furnaces that the wind turbines would replace.   While natural gas fueled vehicles might arguably be cleaner burning than gasoline powered vehicles, the fact is they will still burn fossile fuels, of which there are a finite amount under the Earth’s crust, and still result in spewing carcinogens in to the atmosphere.  The United States would still also be captive to foreign oil, and dependent upon another foreign power, Canada, which is where the bulk of the natural gas fields exist in the North American continent.

Visitors to the Pickens Plan web site probably will not find any disclosures describing Mr. Pickens’ holdings in natural gas distribution, or his motivation to increase the consumption of natural gas as an automotive fuel and thus improve his bottom line, not to mention his cornering the market on wind power.  Nor will they find any advocacy to dismantle coal fired electrical power plants as more wind farms are developed.  Pickens would have us focus only on reducing our dependency on evil foreign oil, but not on appreciably mitigating the ultimate effects of global warming on the planet.

What is really needed is a comprehensive national initiative, modeled on the United States Apollo moon program of the 1960’s and on the war effort of the 1940’s that included the Manhattan Project, bringing together the best scientists, engineers and industrial infrastructure, and human resources our country can muster, and develop a 21st century paradigm for the generation of electrical and automotive power.  Something that is not dependent upon a finite amount of carbon based Earth resources.  Something that through the process of generating energy does not negatively impact the ability for life to continue and thrive on this planet by destroying any part of the environment whether on land, sea or air.

What we need to do is figure out how to harness the renewable constants that exist not just on our planet, but in our solar system.  We need to achieve a much higher degree of leverage over solar power, the sun is a constant, the sun will remain “alive” for eons to come.  We need to leverage wind power, as long as there are weather systems circulating on this plant, there will be wind power.  We need to learn how to leverage gravity, gravity is what keeps the Earth in orbit around the sun, keeps the moon in orbit around the Earth, controls the tides.  Tidal power will generate electricity.  We need to perfect, if we can, hydrogen generation.  Motor vehicles that are powered by hydrogen power cells are just being developed, these are very fuel efficient and non polluting (the only emission from a hydrogen powered car is water vapor from the exhaust), but the current cost in fossil fuel and pollution to generate supplies of hydrogen gas for fuel negates any displacement of costs and pollutants associated with gasoline engines.

Replacing gasoline powered engines with natural gas is only a stop-gap, until the natural gas supply runs out.  The combination of wind power and natural gas bandwagon that Pickens would have us all jump aboard sounds more like a snake oil salesman’s gimmick.  It might sound like the solution to all of our energy problems, but it only postpones the inevitable, if we don’t figure out how to create power in a non-destructive manner.

Snake oil is right up T. Boone Pickens’ alley, he is the same guy who donated $3 Million to fund the Swift Boat smear attacks on John Kerry, trying to sell the country on those lies.

Cross posted from BFD Blog!

Updated 21-Aug-08:

See Scott Thill’s post at AlterNet calling out the Pickens Plan as just a shell game.

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Unbearable

This week the polar bear was designated as a species threatened with extinction, making the arctic bear the first creature added to the endangered species list, primarily because of global warming. A U.S. District Court in Oakland, CA, forced the Bush administration by imposing a May 15 deadline because it was supposed to have been done by January 8.

They did not have time to address the bear’s needs, but did find time on Feb 6 to open offshore oil fields to exploratory drilling in prime polar bear habitat.
The proposal to include polar bears on the endangered species list came from interior Secretary Kempthorne with an announcement that there was “sufficient scientific evidence of the bear’s melting habitat” to officially propose polar bears be put on the list of species threatened with extinction.

In classic Bush admin form, the proposal does NOT include designating critical habitat. It does not include a scientific analysis of the causes of climate change wither. Arctic sea ice last summer retreated to record levels, half the climate modelers did not think would happen until 2050. U.S. Geological Survey released a 9 volume survey saying 2/3rds of the bears habitat would be gone by 2050.

No ice • no hunting • no food •thin bears • lowered reproductive rate • weak cubs that don’t survive

This beautiful species is at risk because of Human irresponsibility.
Our country has refused to get onboard with the global community to address global Warming and is one of the biggest consumers & polluters. Everything get’s put off, actions taken are things like we will deal with getting off foreign oil sometime later, we will address fuel efficiency in a decade, maybe.

Too little • Much too late

Will we let this happen under our watch?

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no debate needed on global warming

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please watch- thanks to tengrain

Resolved: Greed Is NOT Good

How often did we hear the promises made by the “free” traders that abolishing tariffs on countries that allow de facto serfdom and allow unregulated assaults on the environment would be just great for us? We did NAFTA, we’re implementing CAFTA, and we’ve basically outsourced our manufacturing and service sectors to China and India. How’s it working out?

We’ve also been told forever that if we just did away with those bothersome regulations, that the good-hearted souls in the financial sector would behave like altar boys in church. We’ve done away with a lot of those regulations, and we’re turning a blind eye to a lot of violations. How’s THAT working out?

Like it always works out. Greed seems to be an addiction that is worse than opium, or tobacco, or alcohol. The greedy will absolutely cut their own legs out from under themselves in the quest to turn over that quick profit, and they’ve been that way forever. To deregulate and not supervise business seems to have the effect of encouraging the pathologically greedy in the business community to act upon their pathologies with a complete abandoning of ethics, or even common sense.

Read more

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