Question about Pickens Plan

It seems overly complicated. Why use electricity to free up natural gas to then use in cars, when you can just use the electricity in electric cars? There are already many more electric cars in circulation and production than natural gas cars. And pretty much every household is already on the electrical grid, and there are very few natural gas stations around the country, some in California, but I'm not sure there's a single natural gas station for cars in the entire state of Georgia. So I do support the idea of building wind farms across the midwest, and I do support the idea of building copper connections to distribute the electricity. I'm not sure I follow the natural gas crossover to cars, nor sure that I support a trillion dollar handout to do it, when the energy companies that build these windfarms (Pickens is already building the largest in the country in North Texas without any government hand-outs) are going to be collecting revenue for the electricity indefinately. Sure, it would be a big investment to do it, and I'd buy as much stock in such a venture as I could afford, as a long term investment. Surely this whole thing could be done without a trillion dollar handout, through free market investment, perhaps eliminate taxes or some other method to expedite and encourage the project, but I don't think our economy can take another trillion dollar hit and continue financing wars and everything else the government does, in a record deficit, in major debt to China. I'm still open to ideas though, if there's something I'm missing, please fill me in! And overall, I just want to reiterate that I'm am on board with building wind farms like gang busters so I do support that part of the plan, just not the trillion dollar handout.

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Permalink Reply by Allen R. Gale on October 26, 2008 at 6:58pm: Fletcher -

Your argument makes sense, except for the fact that there are many CNG and propane conversion kits and facilities available to relatively quickly make most of the existing gasoline and deisel-fueled vehicles dual-fuel liquid and CNG in a relatively short time. The I don't know about the trillion-dolllar handout - have not heard of that - but surely think that private enterprize, with the help of legislative support in the form of tax incentives you mentioned, should be able to do the job more efficiently and less expensively. I am not sure about the number of electric vehicles in production and/or distribution.

The main issue, as I see it, is one of time. There is no doubt that American enginuity and American business can do this job, to get us off foreign oil, developing biofuels, feul cell powered electric vehicles, clean coal and use of natural gas and other American enefgy sources, the question is what is the quickest path to that objective? There are many things here that need to be changed - the system of regulation needs to be revisited, the financial business needs to be examined, our present accounting methods need to be returned to "real-value" base instead of growth fueled by debt, just to name a few. The problem is where to start? T. Boone has made a start, and with a plan that appears to be time-efficient. Flexibility has to be maintained so it can be tweeked for efficiency as things happen. Congress needs to be convinced it is in their best interest to generate supporting legislation to facilitate this plan, which they have been largely ignoring (or even been hostile to) for over 3 decades. We need to be careful not to get fragmented by getting too many things going at once and lose direction.

You are right with your comments about distribution - and lack of filling stations (see my earlier comment) but not quite right - there is ONE public CNG station in Atlanta, but also 4 or so PRIVATE ones! There are several suppliers of compressed gases, such as propane, oxygen and hydrogen, but not CNG.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by David French on October 29, 2008 at 10:13am: The problem is that all-electric cars are not that common, and the range is generally horrible. There are a lot of natural gas vehicles out there, although most are part of goverment or private (like Georgia Power) fleets. Most of the MARTA buses are CNG powered. CNG vehicles, especially when they keep their bi-fuel capability (can still switch over to gasoline) have plenty of range, that the electric vehicles do not.

All-electric vehicles aren't stalled, they are on the way, the battery technology has been the problem...high weight for a small range.; ▶ Reply to This