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Cheryl,

I am apologizing for some things I wrote to you yesterday.
I wrote “I have read about the Exxon-Mobile plan, the BP/Dupont plan, and the Chevron plan. I am finding out they are promoting alternate energy more than Pickens. Pickens seems to be promoting mainly wind energy. Then he is promoting natural gas as a bridge to more wind. He says drill, drill, drill,”
Honestly, I have not read enough about any of these plans to be an expert on them. I have seen the advertising about these companies on TV about their involvement with alternate energy. Also I have seen Yahoo news articles about them. All I know about the Pickens plan is from his videos. What I wrote to you was my impression about them all from the little I know about them. I should have stated so and not made myself sound like an expert. In fact, after I sent the same message to a whole bunch of people, I started thinking about it and realized that I am not positive that Pickins is not pushing other forms of alternate energy except wind energy.
Also, when I wrote about the oil men who testified on congress, I really can't remember if they said 8 years or 6 to 8 years to get oil after they look for new oil. I should have made it clear that I could not remember the exact figure. I have some people quote 10 years in the news. Honestly, I don't know what the figure really is on the average. I should have said that.
I want to get involved with Green Research, and the most important quality to have as a researcher is credibility and I feel that I blew it when I wrote to you about the Pickens plan. So obviously, I have to work on my honesty. To do effective research, there must be credibility, transparency, and when there is a mistake, those involved must go out of their way to make the mistake very public, especially those who are effected by it.
I feel that the very mistake that I made yesterday by not being totally honest is the same sort of mistake that is getting our country in trouble. I feel credibility is one of the the things that so many of us wish for from our politician, and most of us feel that we get the wool pulled over our eyes over and over.
I personally have been struggling with my honesty all my life, and hard at times for me. Nothing fixes it for me and it is obviously something I must fix for myself.
I do read a lot about global warming, alternate forms of energy, pollution, but don't have an adequate understanding of it all. I have some facts but mostly impressions. I am a retired Engineer who is trying really hard to get an honest grasp of it all, and it is hard. Me not being forthright about what I don't know won't help the situation at all.
Again, my apology.
Rudy Stefenel




My conclusion is that drill, drill, drill is a mistake. Also, it is mistake to promote mainly wind as an alternate energy.

Yes, we have only 3 percent of the worlds oil reserves, but we are using 25 percent of the world oil, just like Pickens says. but do you know that we are using our oil reserves up about 3 times faster than the rest of the world is. Even though we use 25 percent of the world's oil, we only import 15 percent of the worlds oil. We get 10 percent of the worlds oil from our own reserves. We are pumping our reserves like mad, 3 times a fast as the rest of the world.

I have read that we are past the peak in our reserves. That means that we are running out of easy oil. That means that it will cost more to get to oil that is still left in our reserves.

I listened to the oil people testify in Congress in CSPAN and they said that the soonest we could get oil from drill, drill, drill is 8 years. They were making the case that they needed money from Congress to support them because most of the time when they drill, then don't find oil and when they do, it takes a long time before they can get the oil. I know that some people are saying that we can get the oil in 1 1/2 to 3 years. I am not an oil man, so I am going by the oil people testifying on Congress. They say 8 years.

That means that we have to jump on other forms of energy ASAP. We can drill our hearts out and let the USA get even more in debt to China and other countries in the mean time. That means that we can through a lot of money at our diminishing reserves and waist that money when it could have gone to other forms of energy sooner, which is what we have to be using in the long term anyway.

Drill, drill, drill distracts the oil companies from their move to alternate forms of energy. It is bad for us, and it is bad for them.

In my opinion, lots of oil people have spent their lives in the oil business and it is all they know. It paid the bills very well. They are getting old and it is scary as hell to them to consider anything else. I feel that we can't let this fear hold us up. We have to move ahead and drill, drill, drill is a hold up.

We need all the forms of alternate energy in order to get off of foreign oil.

We need to invest in biobutanol, which is a biofuel which replaces gasoline directly. It runs in gasoline engines without modification. It produces less smog than gasoline. It gives slightly better MPG. It can use the existing infrastructure. Ethanol can't use the existing infrastructure because it absorbs water, which corrodes. Ethanol must be trucked to gas stations.

Pickens needs to add biobutanol to his plan. It can be made from anything that ethanol can, and we don't to convert our cars at all to run on it. Pickens should be pitching biobutanol in his videos. Check www.butanol.com to learn about it. Do Google searches on biobutanol to learn about what BP and Dupont are doing. By the way, the University of Berkely has a huge grant to research economic ways of making ethanol and biobutanol.

Dupont and BP will be selling biobutanol in lots of other Countries soon but not in the US that I know of. The USA will be left behind if we don't get on the stick. It is critically important that Pickens add biobutanol to his plan and do this in a big way.

Again, don't take my word for any of this. Spend what ever time it takes to research for yourself. You will find that all the oil companies are involved with alternate energy, some more than others. Pickens is actually behind because with his plan of his narrow focus. Pickens members need to get the facts and pressure him to update his plan. It is a good plan in lots of other ways but it needs some changes.

Rudy Stefenel, Milpitas, California