PickensPlan

My Thoughts on the Pickens Plan...I welcome responses

Hello Mr. Pickens (if you ever actually read this),

I read your plan on your website and I admire and applaud you for your career as an oil tycoon.
I am admittedly a strong conservatie, but regardless, my Engineering and Economics 101 Training makes me want to ask you the following question:

WHY IS IT NECESSARY, IN THIS FREE MARKET ECONOMY OF AMERICA, IF WIND AND NATURAL GAS ARE SO WONDERFUL....THEN WHY IS IT NECESSARY FOR YOU TO GET PEOPLE TO JOIN IN AND "BUY INTO" YOUR PLAN ??

Let me re-phrase my point another way.....when you got into OIL, did you have to get out there and convince people that it was a worthwhile thing for YOU to do ? I am sure not....you probably just got up off your butt and got-r-dun.

But can you see the irony in your marketing and creating this push to promote your "plan" for wind and natural gas ?

If it's so great, just do it, make money, and sell and market it to people.

But could you have pictured yourself years ago creating a web site to promote your entrepreneurship into OIL ?? I doubt it.

Lastly, I have read and researched, trying to find BOTH sides, of the question on just getting MORE oil...at least for now. And it appears very doable, if Congress would just get out of the way. I do not follow your conclusion that we are out of OIL on this planet, or within our own US of A boundaries. The Dakotas, Alaska, the Gulf....to name only a few that we already know about.

Wind, Natural Gas....and don't even bother me with the stupid idea of Ethanol.....but any of the potentially "practical" ideas are certainly much further out from actual implementation than the time it would take to find and deliver more oil.

And if Wind, Natural Gas are such great alternatives to oil, then the free market will get us there....all on its own.

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Permalink Reply by Marlene Kaiser on July 20, 2008 at 11:36am
I agree, see my blog here at Pickens plan. there are so many obstacles to doing anything with energy. Money is the least of the problem. There are so many restrictions, on anything that anyone wants to do that it makes it prohibitive for individuals to do much at all. I wanted to add solar panels to my home. I had to get a permit, buy the panels, have them installed profestionally because of the regs. This made it prohibitive financially for me to do it.
Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 20, 2008 at 3:07pm
Marlene,

I did install solar power for my residence. The only additional cost that I had to pay over the cost of materials was the building permit of $85.00 enforced by the county. I did the installation by myself. Now, I'm an electrical engineer so I did not have to get an electrical contractor involved. But, most people will have a contractor do the job and make it approval ready.

The paperwork to get the design approved by the county, the state, and the power company and the final approvals by the power company and the county after the installation were indeed a pain in the behind. But, it only required my time to keep after it all. I would think that as more of these systems are approved, the bureaucratic mess will become more streamlined.

The bottom line is that cost for installation is not so much different than any other construction project. I would encourage everyone to look into projects that contribute to reducing consumption from the grid. Many of us do have the means to do so. Think of it as a tax that we pay at 50 percent of what eventually will be implemented by the government. For, if we do nothing, the government surely will get involved...... oh it is already involved!

When I installed my system, I did get a rebate of nearly 50 percent of my costs from the state solar program. There are many such plans available in many states and counties. Please take the time to check into it. Solar power, while still having a substantial return on investment, is much less expensive than you might think with the help of these programs. You are already helping to support these programs with your tax dollars.... take advantage of it!

Michelle
Permalink Reply by Doyle Guhy on July 18, 2008 at 6:27pm
I concur Tom. I'm still wondering what the "Plan" is. I see an idea but not a plan
Permalink Reply by Marlene Kaiser on July 20, 2008 at 11:44am
Maybe he is counting on us to round out his plan. I thought his main plan was to get everyone involved, thinking, talking, contacting our legislatures, getting regulations removed that stand in the way. Finding ways to get the price down by all of us coming together. Getting incentives to use other than Oil. Breaking the cycle of dependence on lobbiest from the oil companies to solve the problem. This is only one problem our government has to be involved in to solve. Medical issues are also big on the agenda. Everything now depends on us contacting congress, legislatures, and being involved, for too long we hve taken a back seat. This is our opportunity. Pickens may think he opened a pandora's box. We have let our voices be stilled by inaction. This is our opportunity.
Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 20, 2008 at 2:57pm
His ads are still declaring that over the next several weeks, he'll be providing details of the plan.... perhaps this site says it all.

But seriously folks, we can see something needs to be done. We do have leaders who have some good ideas. Can't we just start to run with the best ones? Inaction will only drive us towards economic disaster.

If we start, if we facilitate these ventures, we'll employ thousands, develop new technologies and propel our country into the future.

Michelle
Permalink Reply by Dooner Horton on July 18, 2008 at 6:46pm
Hmmm. You make a pretty cogent argument, Tom. If it's too late for you to run for President, maybe we could draft you as a running mate along with the more moderate democrat, McCain?
Permalink Reply by Keith on July 18, 2008 at 8:31pm
I am confident that the free market would eventually build up the various alternative energy resources. The question is, can we afford to wait that long? What will be the impact of continuing to drain $700 billion out of our nation every year? What will be the impact on national policy when we must give in to foreign threats from big oil producing countries? Will there be anything left of our way of life by the time the "market" catches up? The Chinese and Indians are rapidly joining the oil consuming age and there is simply not enough supply, so the delecate balance between supply and demand is going to go critical far faster than you might think, and far faster than the market can respond and build the infrastructure for alternative energy sources.

If we had waited for the "market" to build ships for WWII, we would have lost the war. If you don't think we are in a real economic war for survival, you are not seeing the global picture. Every time an oil rich dictator buys one of our companies or buildings, they have won a battle in this war, they have captured American territory, and we willingly gave them the weapons to do it, to the tune of $700 billion a year.

Because of the time lag between commitment of resources and production, the only way we can avoid the impending disaster is to take serious action now, 35 years after what should have been our wake-up call with the 1973 oil embargo (better late than later). Today, our dependence of foreign oil has made our infrastructure and economy so fragile that any little thing could crash the system, let alone something like a war in Iran or another embargo by Arab states or our "friends" to the south.

We simply can't afford to wait for the "market" to get us out of this situation. It will take the efforts of many smart people, commitment by millions of people, and developing every domestic energy resource as quickly as it becomes economically feasable, without mortgaging the future of our economy or our environment. Wind power on a large scale is now economically feasable (as opposed to solar or ethanol) and needs to be pursued with all due haste, not simply as a displacement for natural gas, or to supplement to our ever increasing population and demand for energy, but to free us from our self-destructive dependence on foreign energy sources.
Permalink Reply by ART005 on July 19, 2008 at 8:47pm
The wind industry is already growing 25%/yr and that should be impressive. That is the market rate of increase. The problem is that pace is not fast enough to impact the $$ going to the mid east in the next 10 years or so. The Pickens Plan is about accellerating the pace. That might mean public exposure to make faster headway on organizing the infrastructure to motivate the turbine industry to ramp up much higher than 25%. I think 40%/yr makes a good dent going forward 10 years. That is not the kind of growth private industry sustains on its own. Hence all this public exposure.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/pdfs/43025.pdf
Permalink Reply by Marlene Kaiser on July 20, 2008 at 11:48am
Hooray, you made a great point. Some of use have been trying to get things done, but complacency has set in. I hope this jolts all of us, at least Pickens has given us a forum and a means to contact those we need to most.
Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 20, 2008 at 3:38pm
(from the link to the pdf above)

So.... the federal wind power tax credits are about to expire.

That's what Pickens is pushing for. He needs these credits to reduce the cost of implementation. That's not such a bad thing. Individually, we can take advantage of them as well!

All of you free market people out there should take note.... even free market entrepreneurs will take money from the government any way they can get it. And if there are no programs, they'll find ways to get the government to provide them. That's how the "free market" works ;) Unfortunately, we as a people, are blind to this.

Michelle
Permalink Reply by Mike Miller on July 22, 2008 at 2:34pm
You make free market sound like a conspiracy. Wake up! If Pickens or any other free market types can "energize" enough people to push our elected officials to define and fund a coherent national energy strategy, good for them. And if the free market people make an additional billion or so as a result, good for them. We all benefit. Michelle, take your blinders off.
Mike
Permalink Reply by Michelle on July 22, 2008 at 4:06pm
No Mike, I completely agree with you.

Intelligent free markets will work with government. That's the point I'm trying to make. Anything with this level of implementation must interact with the government. The strings are always there. It can not be done, at this level, without some sort of government support.

There are those on this site that think that the free market can implement a huge proposal like this free of the entanglements of our government. It can't. The government should be the facilitator to bring many parties together to build "the grid" on which it all works for example. Our government is not much of a facilitator these days. It's a giant road block at all levels. I've been pushing to reduce red tape for new energy projects with my legislators for years.

As I said, the free markets will take advantage of every tax break, credit, or grant that they can. No problem. Those are incentives. I've done it myself with my own solar arrays here at home. My state (my state's taxpayers) paid for half of my installation. We have been offered incentives and I gladly took them.

That's really what we need here. A federal mandate to push ahead for energy independence. That will require tax dollars to go to free market entrepreneurs as incentives. It will require streamlining of approval processes. I don't know what they all are, but when I hooked up my solar array to the grid, the paperwork and approval process was indeed daunting. It should be much easier.

So, my bottom line is this. I fully support government incentives. I fully support someone getting rich.... for they take substantial risk. I also support reducing red tape without reducing safety of implementation. If we don't get the government involved, then people won't get rich, we won't get approval processes streamlined, these power sources won't go up, and we'll still be stuck with the same old problems. Sooner or later, no amount of money will have the ability to purchase energy overseas .... for those countries will need what they have left for themselves.

My hubby says that we should be the last country in the world that still has oil. We should take care with our reserves for oil will be required for hundreds of years for lubrication, production of plastics, etc. I agree with him.

Michelle

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