by Larry Smith
Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr is an American billionaire who spent most of his life investing in the oil and gas industry.
He is a strong supporter of President George W Bush and has contributed millions to a variety of conservative causes. But he also believes in the peak oil theory, which claims that world oil production is about to enter a period of irrevocable decline.
Pickens recently announced a major energy policy proposal that promotes alternatives to fossil fuels. A major feature of the plan is the replacement of about a quarter of US electricity demand (currently derived from natural gas) with wind energy. This would allow gas to provide a third of the nation's transportation fuel and significantly reduce its dependence on foreign oil.
Pickens is spending $58 million on a multi-media campaign just to promote the plan. He also owns a company that is
the largest provider of vehicular natural
gas in North America, with a broad customer base in the
refuse, transit, shuttle, taxi, and trucking markets. Another of his
companies is building a 4,000 megawatt wind farm in Texas that will be
the world's largest.
The Department of Energy reports that 20 per cent of America's electricity can come from wind. And a 2005 Stanford University study
found that there is enough wind power worldwide to satisfy global
demand 7 times over — even if only 20 per cent of it could be captured.
Pickens estimates that building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from Texas to North Dakota would cost $1 trillion. And it would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns. But it's a one-time cost that has to be offset against the $700 billion a year that the US spends on foreign oil.
Pickens regards his plan as a bridge to the future that will buy time to develop even greater new energy technologies.
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