Yay for the Pickens Plan!  

YOUR ALTERNATE CLEAN GREEN ENERGY UPDATE

Finally!  A Plan!  The Pickens Plan.  Kudos to Mr. Boone Pickens!

Yep, it finally came down to a long time oil man to propose a way out of our energy bind.  Obviously, it’s only a first step and it has a lot of hurdles and a long way to go before implementation, but Boone Pickens’ proposal is a great first step.  We have to get the ball rolling and the country pulling together again.  Plan on seeing advertisements about Pickens’ plan because he plans on publicizing it & has the money to do so.

The Pickens Plan::  To dramatically reduce on dependence on foreign oil.

As Boone Pickens unveiled yesterday, he wants to have private industry fund and build thousands of wind turbines in the middle part of America, in what he calls a wind corridor, running north to south from the Canadian border to West Texas.  Which can generate about 20% of our electricity needs!  Then transport this wind energy to the Midwest, South and Western metropolitan areas by private industry building electric power transmission lines.  This will free up the natural gas now used to fuel these Midwestern, Southern and Western regional power plants.  We can then redirect this natural gas to replace imported oil as a fuel for transportation vehicles (cars, etc.).  Yay!

Schwartz View:  Mr. Pickens goes on to request a monthly report on the reduction in foreign oil imports and the progress of development and implementation of natural gas fired vehicles.  I’m 100% for this plan and all others of similar ilk.  We do have a serious crisis on our hands and we need to get started now in addressing it.  Again, I believe there is already critical mass built toward solving the increasingly critical issues of terrorism, global warming or global pollution, a new impetus to growth and our own national security.  And all can be resolved by getting off the use of the dirty power source of oil.  Go Pickens Go!

*  Finally, many boos for the Group of Eight (G-8) leaders who couldn’t agree on anything about energy in their just finishing up three-day meeting in Japan.  They all know something needs to be done but they can’t agree on anything.  And our President Bush is one of the worst offenders.  I like the man but am anxious to see someone replace him because he just doesn’t get it.  America is ready to sacrifice for the worthwhile goals of national security, job growth, fighting terrorism and respecting and cleaning up our planet, but he’s locked into a very bad and losing position and to top it off, is stubborn.  Hey, being stubborn when wrong is a big no-no-in investing in the stock market, why not in politics too? 

The G-8 statement?  They will cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2050.  Regular readers know when any proposal goes out more than 10 years or so it’s just a sop.  And this statement has no plan, no measurements, no starting point, just about nothing.  We truly need new global leadership!