Posted on 07/09/2008 7:43:50 PM PDT by Kozman
Boone Pickens is a very smart man. He understands oil and energy better than most analysts. But, he has just made an $85 million ad buy to run the above commercial. The ad says he has a plan to solve the energy "problem". The ad states that wind power is part of his plan. What he doesn't tell you is that he is looking for huge subsides for his wind farms. When someone has a plan, they can go ahead and execute it. When someone has a plan and they run commercials to tell you about the plan, they want you to pay for their plan...
(Excerpt) Read more at economicpolicyjournal.com ...
Sickening, ain’t it? Boone’s got 4 billion in the bank and he wants Joe Blow’s tax money to hedge his bet.
They cant make enough windmills for that to be viable.
That is not to rule out windmills on smaller applications though.
bump
I have no problem with the windmills as long as I don’t have to pay for them. Our genius governor wants them on the leeward side of the state.
This dingdong needs to take that money, build a refinery or two and advocate drilling our own oil!
Keep in mind his ad convinces you that his windmills will keep 700 billion dollars per year from going overseas. Wind power will not replace a single barrel of oil. It can replace coal, natural gas and nuclear energy as these three sources of energy make most electricity in this country. But we don't have a problem with the prices of coal going through the roof... it's petroleum products. You every seen a car with a windmill on top of it? Do you think you ever will?
Pickens’ commercial ads really suck. He couldn’t have pulled this crap at a worse time. America needs energy NOW! We don’t have time to listen to some crazy old coot trying to sell us windmills.
It is more complex than that. He owns huge NG reserves, and wants to see “fleets” switch from Diesel to NG.
It’s an historical fact that you cannot reason with anyone who believes in windmills. You need to just back off and let whatever is gonna happen, um, happen.
My problem with Boone is the same problem I have with everybody else who wants government subsidies and that is the government has no money, it all comes from you and me.
Of course he didn't make a friend here when he kowtowed to the lefties by saying we can't drill our way out of the eneergy crisis. Where the hell does he think NG comes from, the faucet?
You have posted a piece trash. Mr. Pickens is an American patriot. Do you think an 80 year old man who has put up $2 bil of his own fortune to help save this nation deserves your miserable scorn?
I’ve witnessed two tonight and thank FR for the heads up on who he is. Anybody here on a regular basis saw his name flying around on the oil threads. It’s a big play on his money, not gonna sit with me.
He doesn't address what we can use for gasoline until...we don't need it anymore...which won't happen in his lifetime, or mine.
"a car with a windmill on top of it" Good job. :-)
is that you t-boone? Or just another moron from over at DU?
What is not benign is Pickens' high visibility ad-buy, supported in no small measure by his credibility as an oilman, that we "cannot drill our way out of this problem," coupled to a renewable supply that will take longer than new drilling to bring on line, and that ties directly into a campaign of distortions and lies by the disloyal opposition that renewable energy sources are a panacea for all our problems. In that regard, Pickens is peddling crap, however patriotic he may be. If he wants support for his scheme, he will need to look to the right, because I guarantee you that once environmentalists understand that he intends to burn carbon-based fuel as a part of it, he will get no help from the lefties to whom his ads are pandering.
As for "saving the country" that seems astronomically dubious, given the size of the problem and the size of the alternative being offered. It seems safe to assume Mr. Pickens intends to make money from his investment. There is of course nothing wrong with that; far from it. Suggesting that his desires are altruistic requires, to be charitable, a willing suspension of disbelief usually reserved for fiction.
Welcome to FR, Kozman. The post was useful and informative. Carry on.
Whose land is he going to put them on? How many years will it take to get Congressional approval if it’s going to be on “publick” land? How many years will the enviro-wackos tie it up in court? How many NIMBY citizen groups will file their own suits against windmills? And after all that just how much energy will be produced?
I bow to nobody, for example, in my passion for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I think football is at least ten times more important than US energy policy (ok seriously, ony twice as important). But why, Oh why, do the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have to buy a stadium for a franchise that's been owned outright for sixty years, and why, then, does the team get to turn around and sell the name of a stadium it did not even buy to another private business for advertising purposes?
We really have to get over this notion that every great cause deserves to be publicly financed. If a project can't make a profit, it probably shouldn't be done.
Good analysis. I think the idea is unworkable. He is the only person emphasizing natural gas for vehicle transportation. With the current moratorium on drilling, natural gas will be in short supply.
Windmills require lots of natural gas plants to provide backup power. I am confused about the closing of natural gas plants. I do not think there is any viable battery technology to replace natural gas plants for backup power. I think that the windmills will have high variability in power production. The cost to connect windmills over such a large area will be enormous. The control software will also be extremely complex. Overall, the power costs will be very high and the system reliability will low. As long as it has the green label, cost and reliability do not matter however.
I don't know about anywhere else, but there was a meeting in Littlefield, Tx (population 6,000) for “anyone who is interested in having a wind turbine mounted on their land”. Over 1,000 people showed up.
There's lots and lots of windy, open space in West Texas that is not occupied by NIMBYs. And lots and lots of farmers willing to give up a few acres in return for a royalty check.
No.
Like others I am probably most burned by Pickens' throwing water on drilling. I don't think that is true and I don't think it's patriotic to BS like that for his own profit.
I agree with you and I thought the same thing about Coors Field in Denver.
This is the heart of the problem and why T. Boone Pickens presumed testimony against his own interest -- like those unspeakably annoying "green" BP commericals -- is so destructive.
Nobody seems to understand that cost is a measure of energy efficiency, and that when something has an outrageous price-tag it invariably means you're just shifting energy loss from somewhere visible to somewhere invisible: a three card Monte game we're playing against ourselves.
Worse yet is how much environmental damage is going to be done by these supposedly green projects. Do environmentalists truly believe that converting forests and farmland to energy cropland will be environmentally friendly? Do they think it's environmentally more sound to drill for oil in the Middle East and transport it hundreds or thousands of miles across oceans than it is to drill a few miles off our own coasts? Apparently they do, because now they're even calling for a ban on shipping US oil from Alaska to nearer markets in Asia, with the risible claim that this somehow promotes energy independence.
Underlying all this is the misdirection that these chowder-heads actually want the price of oil to be high, and to have no more oil produced. How do they think trashing the economies of the richest -- and environmentally cleanest -- countries in the world is going to help their anthropogenic global warming cause while 2.5 billion people in China and India continue to slake their ever increasing energy thirst from combustibles? It is a bonfire of vanities on a planetary scale.
Let's hope there's something to that particular sport's jinx.
I hadn’t thought of that. I’m not superstitious but I’ll cross my fingers that the ‘rule of threes’ holds sway for this one.
I find it highly laughable that all the lib multi-billionaires haven’t created and operated giant wind farms already. Did Pickens ask for gov subsidies when he went into the oil business? I think he just saw an opportunity and went for it. If Pickens thinks this is such a great idea, then he should have no trouble getting backing from the all the enviro-wacko libs whose total wealth numbers in the trillions.
Why is Pickens immune from criticism? Along comes a billionaire oilman with a nutty scheme who wants trillions from the American taxpayers, and we’re supposed to just cough up the dough. You’re on the wrong forum amigo. Only libs try to shut other people up.
Very good post. The rats like to spend other peoples' money so cost is just an annoyance. They have grand Utopian visions to develop a new energy economy according to their myopic and distorted visions of energy production. The rats are leading us into an energy meltdown. The impact of the current oil price rise has not fully bitten into the economy. The current price increase and future price increases may have devasting impacts on employment and standards of living.
Pickens is a huckster to a degree.....used to be a stock extortionist.
Now he wants to toot his own wind horn.
He also owns more water rights out west than anyone but governments.
He plans to exploit that.
He’s successful but at what cost of character.
Good post.
Mr. Pickens is taking the lead in trying to stimulate action to reduce our reliance on foreign sources of oil in a hurry. Many of these foreigners are far from being our allies. I wish he had said: "We can't drill our way out of this problem with the restrictions we now have on doing so", but he didn't, so comes the criticism.
At any rate, he is doing something when everyone else is only laying blame on the other guy; and he's put up half his fortune to back up his plan. If his bet is correct, when he and those who bet with him make some money, what's wrong with that? I'm not trying to shut off debate on the matter, I'm saying T. Boone Pickens is a great American who has created jobs and made fortunes for thousands. He doesn't deserve the scorn aimed at him from some here.
He has the DNC talking points down.
What talking points?
Dey's a whole lotta lib-speak goin' on dere.
Bush said that America was addicted to oil, to a joint session of congress.
There has to be contingency back up gas fired power plants, and, in just a few years we will be importing 20% of our natural gas supply.
Any way, Pickins is building a large number of windmills in Texas and ERCOT is on the verge of deciding how many metro areas will be connected which determines how much the transmission cost will be. There is much in the news on this now.
Anyone who is both scientifically competent and genuinely interested in upgrading the electrical grid to free up natural gas supplies would be spending the money to defuse peasant-superstition fear of The N Word.
Bush is kind of a socialist too. If America is addicted to oil then people are addicted to breathing air. Lame!
Then we need to drill.
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