The Pickens Plan

Is it possible for a famed and politically conservative oil prospector, one who funded the Swift Boat Veterans, to become a proponent of solar power? T. Boone Pickens, founder of BP Capital Management, launched an energy plan and social-networking campaign on Tuesday that calls for replacing Middle Eastern oil with Midwestern wind.

The so-called Pickens Plan would exploit the country's "wind corridor" from the Canadian border to West Texas to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity. Transmission lines would be built to transport the power to places in the U.S. where the demand is. The natural gas, now used to fuel power plants, would instead be used as a transportation fuel, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is domestic.

He proposed that the private sector finance the investment, which would result in a one-third reduction, equal to $230 billion, in the U.S.' yearly payments to foreign countries. Pickens has already invested heavily in wind, notably a planned 4,000-megawatt wind farm in his native Texas.

T. Boone Pickens TV Commercial


T. Boone Pickens Explains His Plan


Can this big oil shill be serious about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, or is he merely a wolf in sheep's clothing? My guess is that it's strictly business. Pickens is smart; he knows that oil is no longer the way, and. . .he's also into domestic natural gas in a big way. This can only be profitable for him and I'm fine with that - at least he's earning profits for doing the right thing this time.