An Oil Man Fresh Outlook

Tag : Fuel Oil Gas

A s legendary oil investor T. Boone Pickens tells the story,Republican Bob Dole wanted him to head up his 1996 presidentialcampaign in Texas. In return, Pickens wanted to be Dole's chiefadviser on energy policy.
Dole listened. And Dole advised Pickens on political reality:
Right there, on the floor, that's a sleeping dog. Politicians don'tkick sleeping dogs. Bill Clinton doesn't give a damn about energyand I don't either. We're not - either one of us - gonna kick asleeping dog, and so energy will not be an issue in this campaign.
But in case one of us stumbles over the dog, and if one of us has aproblem, you will be the guy who advises me.
"Neither one of them," Pickens said, "had a problem with energy.... They didn't want anything to do with it."
And that, he said, sums up why the United States has stood by andwatched its addiction to oil grow for decades.
Why would Dole or Clinton have cared? The price of oil struggled tocrack $20 a barrel in 1996, and a gallon of gas sold for about$1.50.
Now gas is over $4 a gallon, and Pickens isn't waiting for thegovernment to come up with an answer. He has devised his own planto help the U.S. reduce its dependence on foreign oil - and he'sputting money behind it.
In a visit to the Chicago Tribune editorial board the other day,Pickens used an easel and a green marker to draw a picture of acountry in crisis - and in denial. Net oil imports needed to meetdaily demand have nearly doubled in the past 35 years, according tothe U.S. Energy Information Administration, to nearly 60 percentfrom 35 percent. That's $700 billion a year draining out of thecountry.
"This is very close to war for this country," said Pickens.
He proposes replacing the 22 percent of electricity the nation getsfrom natural gas with wind energy. That would free up that naturalgas to become an alternative fuel for cars. He says cars running onnatural gas could cover 38 percent of U.S. transportation needs.
Pickens is on to something here. Dependence on foreign oil iscreating a drag on the U.S. economy and puts the nation in astrategically vulnerable position.
With gasoline this expensive and the U.S. economy teetering, JohnMcCain and Barack Obama aren't talking about sleeping dogs. They'retalking energy alternatives.
The Pickens proposal should be part of this mix.
Natural gas has a lot going for it. There's plenty of it here. It'sa clean fuel; it doesn't contribute to greenhouse gases. It doesn'tpoach on the nation's food supply, as corn-based ethanol does.
There are a lot of moving parts to his plan. A large number of windturbines would have to be built on a broad swath of the GreatPlains from Canada to Mexico. (Price tag? About $1 trillion.Pickens is an investor in wind energy.) A distribution system forthe wind power would have to be built. (Estimated cost, $70billion.) U.S. automakers would have to make a commitment toselling cars powered by natural gas.
These are intriguing ideas. They carry some risk: Boosting demandfor natural gas cars would hike the price for natural gas ifsupplies don't rise or if the wind alternative doesn't materialize.But wind, too, is plentiful. These ideas would boost ruraleconomies. And they would help the U.S. halt the disastrous upwardtrajectory of oil imports.