Pickens Plan
America is blessed with the world's greatest wind power corridor and abundant reserves of clean natural gas. The Pickens Plan will utilize these tremendous resources to build a bridge to the future — a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives and buying time for us to develop even greater new technologies.The Plan calls for building new wind generation facilities that will produce 20% of our nation's electricity and allow us to use natural gas as a transportation fuel. The combination of these domestic energies can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports. And we can do it all in 10 years.
There are several pillars to the Pickens Plan:
• Create millions of new jobs by building out the capacity to generate up to 22 percent of our electricity from wind. And adding to that with additional solar capacity;
• Building a 21st century backbone electrical grid;
• Providing incentives for homeowners and the owners of commercial buildings to upgrade their insulation and other energy saving options; and
• Using America's natural gas to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel.
While dependence on foreign oil is a critical concern, it is not a problem that can be solved in isolation. We have to think about energy as a whole, and that begins by considering our energy alternatives and thinking about how we will fuel our world in the next 10 to 20 years and beyond.
New jobs from renewable energy and conservation.
Any discussion of alternatives should begin with the 2007 Department of Energy study showing that building out our wind capacity in the Great Plains - from northern Texas to the Canadian border - would produce 138,000 new jobs in the first year, and more than 3.4 million new jobs over a ten-year period, while also producing as much as 20 percent of our needed electricity.
Building out solar energy in the Southwest from western Texas to California would add to the boom of new jobs and provide more of our growing electrical needs - doing so through economically viable, clean, renewable sources.
To move that electricity from where it is being produced to where it is needed will require an upgrade to our national electric grid. A 21st century grid which will, as technology continues to develop, deliver power where it is needed, when it is needed, in the direction it is needed will be the modern equivalent of building the Interstate Highway System in the 1950's.
Beyond that, tremendous improvements in electricity use can be made by creating incentives for owners of homes and commercial buildings to retrofit their spaces with proper insulation. Studies show a significant upgrading of insulation would save the equivalent of one million barrels of oil per day in energy by cutting down on both air conditioning costs in warm weather and heating costs in winter.
A domestic fuel to free us from foreign oil.
The Honda Civic GX Natural Gas Vehicle is the cleanest internal-combustion vehicle in the world according to the EPA.
Conserving and harnessing renewable forms of electricity not only has incredible economic benefits, but is also a crucial piece of the oil dependence puzzle. We should continue to pursue the promise of electric or hydrogen powered vehicles, but America needs to address transportation fuel today. Fortunately, we are blessed with an abundance of clean, cheap, domestic natural gas.
Currently, domestic natural gas is primarily used to generate electricity. It has the advantage of being cheap and significantly cleaner than coal, but this is not the best use of our natural gas resources.
By generating electricity from wind and solar and conserving the electricity we have, we will be free to shift our use to natural gas to where it can lower our need for foreign oil - helping President Obama reach his goal of zero oil imports from the Middle East within ten years - by replacing diesel as the principal transportation fuel for heavy trucks and fleet vehicles.
Nearly 20% of every barrel of oil we import is used by 18-wheelers moving goods burning imported diesel. An over-the-road truck cannot be moved using current battery technology. Fleet vehicles like buses, taxis, express delivery trucks, and municipal and utility vehicles (any vehicle which returns to the "barn" each night where refueling is a simple matter) should be replaced by vehicles running on clean, cheap, domestic natural gas rather than imported gasoline or diesel fuel.
A plan that brings it all together.
Natural gas is not a permanent or complete solution to imported oil. It is a bridge fuel to slash our oil dependence while buying us time to develop new technologies that will ultimately replace fossil transportation fuels. Natural gas is the critical puzzle piece that will help us keep more of the $350 to $450 billion every year at home, where it can power our economy and pay for our investments in wind energy, a smart grid and energy efficiency.
It is this connection that makes The Pickens Plan not just a collection of good ideas, but a plan. By investing in renewable energy and conservation, we can create millions of new jobs. New alternative energies allow us to shift natural gas to transportation; securing our economy by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and keeping more money at home to pay for the whole thing.
| Address: | PO Box 12123, Dallas, TX 75225 |
| Website: | www.pickensplan.com |
| Phone: | +1 877 872 3247 |