Thursday I went to hear T. Boone Pickens talk about his bold new energy proposal for the United States. He gave the keynote at the Rocky Mountain Energy Epicenter in Denver (he still knows how to turn on the charm, and attracted a big, enthusiastic crowd). Pickens believes "a fool with a plan can beat a genius who has no plan." So I've taken a look at PickensPlan.com. It sounds fantastic on paper -- widespread use of wind energy and natural-gas powered vehicles could help solve enormous environmental, economic, and political problems. Pickens says right now he's spending $50 million to roll out the plan. He's everywhere in the press: Besides his appearance in Denver, I've seen his video on mass media outlets such as MSNBC (during Keith Olbermann).
Old school, meet new school. The most interesting thing about all this to me is that it's a veteran oil man proposing these new energy policies -- not someone like Mark Cuban or Paul Allen. In some respects, yesterday was a flash-back to the '80s, with Boone making references to college football like it's the only sport in the world, and referring to other oil men by only their first names. However, his PickensPlan.com site is powered by Marc Andreesen's Ning social-networking technology and has the requisite modern features for building an online community.
Show me the evidence that the United States can be the Saudi Arabia of wind power. I'm wondering what evidence is available to demonstrate that the plan is viable. Will substantial wind-power generation require too much land? How much will the power transmission cost? Pickens makes an interesting point that we already have a good natural-gas distribution system, running down most every street in the U.S. ...but can we really leverage that to fuel millions of natural-gas powered vehicles? (He asked why, if there are now 8 million of these cars globally, very few of them are operating in the U.S. And he answered the question by acknowledging that he didn't purchase a natural-gas powered car until *this week*.) The PickensPlan site says "A 2005 Stanford University study found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global demand 7 times over — even if only 20% of wind power could be captured." But they don't link to that study or give us the citation to look it up ourselves. I realize their site isn't the place to grind through every detail, but I'd like to see some hard evidence, rough numbers, that sort of stuff.
Leadership required to make it happen. Besides the economics of making this energy plan happen, there are of course political and marketing hurdles to overcome. And Pickens is doing some impressive things to keep it going. Most importantly, he's not aligning with either the Republicans or the Democrats. He's acknowledged the dismal failure of recent U.S. administrations to develop a coherent energy policy. Pickens cites a lack of strong leadership, saying the U.S. has no one to blame for its current predicament, that it's not the fault of anyone in the Middle East or anywhere else.
Go Pokes! Boone has a long, colorful history in business -- like any risk taker, he's been right sometimes, and other times not so much. (Funniest recent description of him: Good Morning Silicon Valley said he's a takeover artist from the classical period.) Besides Garth Brooks, Boone is probably the most famous graduate of my alma mater, Oklahoma State University (though my personal favorite is Sanjiv Sidhu, a fellow OSU Chemical Engineering major who created the supply chain management industry (i2 software) in his apartment in Dallas.)
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