Interview with T. Boone Pickens on America's Energy Future
T. Boone Pickens is known as the “Oracle of Oil” because of his uncanny ability to predict the direction of fuel prices, and is the author of a new book, The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future.
Mr. Pickens talks about his "Pickens Plan" to end America's dependence on foreign oil and secure our energy future through renewable energy sources and natural gas among other things. He talks about windmills, pipelines and natural gas for cars among other things.You can listen directly -- no downloads needed -- by going here and clicking on the gray Flash player. You can download the entire show and listen at your leisure by clicking right here. Or you can get a free subscription via iTunes if you like -- and why wouldn't you?
Music is "Time's Right" by 46 Long, and "69365" by the Nebraska Guitar Militia.
Labels: Podcasts
posted by Helen at 10:34 AM
21 Comments:
Windmills are an insanely bad energy idea. Pickens is pushing them only because of the federal tax subsidy, subsidies which he is pushing to increase, not because they make sense as power sources.
I can't claim any specific knowledge of windmills re their feasibility as energy sources, but until I hear convincing arguments to the contrary, I am wholeheartedly in love with the idea of harnessing wind for power. Do windmills pollute? Do they cause cancer to the local residents? Are they a hard target for terrorists? So far, all I can think of is how much they cost to construct and maintain versus the power they produce. We don't have to excavate the earth for wind as we do for coal.
I've heard that nuclear power today is wildly less dangerous than it was 30 years ago, and that the nuclear waste produced is profoundly less than before. So I'm not against that, either.
What am I against? Sending billions of dollars into the Middle East to fund a group of people who detest us. In the past 50 years, we have financed a society/culture to rise from desert-dwelling nomads into a viable geopolitical force whose influence in the world has been, to say the least, preposterously retrograde.
Pickens may not have the best proposals, but clearly his end game is a lot more beneficial to this country than what passes for current wisdom.
I can't claim any specific knowledge of windmills re their feasibility as energy sources, but until I hear convincing arguments to the contrary, I am wholeheartedly in love with the idea of harnessing wind for power.
Well, the problem with wind power is that the wind blows when it wants (or not), and not according to a set schedule. So you may have more available capacity when you don't need it, and not enough when you do. So you'll still have to have enough other sources of electrical power to keep up with daily demand if the wind stops blowing. Which is no different than simply building nuke/coal/gas power plants and no windmills.
Now, if we could find a way to efficiently store "excess" electrical energy, then you'd have something.
The environmental downside is that it is going to kill birds. A lot of birds. Birds that help keep the insect population in check.
It isn't the effect on birds that worries me. It's the effect on bats.
The same physics that turn the turbines and make planes fly produces a change in air pressure that has been associated with previously unexplained deaths of bats. (ref. here) Birds, on the other hand, seem to steer clear of the turbines, according the the article.
But bats with barotrauma isn't a small thing, if the article is to be believed.
Kevin wrote: "What am I against? Sending billions of dollars into the Middle East to fund a group of people who detest us."
Me too brother! I want it all on the table, anything that helps us become more energy rich. We have to drill, but we must agressively pursue the development of alternate energies.
While I bet Pickens is up to his eyeballs in self interest as far as this matter is concerned, I commend him for his efforts and willingness to put some cash down on the table to add to the discussion.
Trey
Windmills need to be where the wind blow and land for their construction is available. This means that long transmission lines must be constructed to bring the power to the point of use. Every single mile of these lines will be the target of litigation and regulatory maneuvering by environmentalists, nearby property owners, and various other parties. This is already happening with the Mohave Desert--San Diego connection and in various other places. Resolving these issues will take years or decades.
Unless something major changes, environmentalists and lawyers are not going to allow us to build any major energy-production infrastructure. (Nor will they allow us to build important energy-conserving infrastructure, in the form of rail lines and railyard.) We may well be facing an electricity crisis which will dwarf the current issues with gasoline prices.
Transmitting the power will be a problem. Add to it our current grid system is aging and in need of rebuild. There are about 15,000 power plants in the grid, all types combined.
Regardless of how it is done, we will need more power than what is available. The ability to make food, potable water, and treat waste water are forever on the rise in this world. Homes, buildings - these are not secrets. It takes electricity. It takes one form of energy to make another form (electrical energy) that is efficient, manageable and transmittable. AC cannot be stored (as AC), DC does not travel well. Even the best battery systems are woefully lacking. Fossil fuels, the weight of falling water, wind power, fission. That's about it currently, for generating power.
Cold (or any type) of fusion reaction and high tension lines made from super conducting metals would be God sent. It is being worked on, feverishly. It's a form of good news, so we don't hear about it much. And it is years away.
I don't see a quick replacement for the internal combustion engine on the horizon, or the various fossil fuels that drive them. The transport of goods and services are totally dependent on them.
True, energy is without question the biggest problem this country faces in the 10-15 year time frame. I like Pickens' idea and he certainly has done enough homework to hold his own in the energy discussion, but I just can't see wind power playing a significant role in our energy future, same with solar. They're cute ideas that are trendy to support, but the baseload generating capacity just isn't there. Basically, the only options on the table for baseload power are fossil and nuclear. Out of those two, nuclear is obviously the best bet, but it requires lots of up-front investment and that just doesn't fly with our instant-return culture and economy. But several countries have figured out that nuclear is the way to go and hopefully the U.S. is finally coming around.
The environmental downside is that it is going to kill birds
That's not the only environmental downside. Wind power uses up land. Lots of land. Far, far more land per megawatt than nuclear, coal, or natural gas. I am always amused when the same crowd that whines incessantly about "urban sprawl" waxes poetic about wind power. Apparently it's evil for people to live on a piece of land, but it's OK to put a windmill on it.
It's impossible to take Pickens's spiel seriously for one huge reason: he donated a whopping $165 million in 2006 to the Oklahoma State athletic department. He could have put his money where his mouth is by using that money to fund scholarships for the future engineers and scientists who will be needed to bring his proposals to fruition. But no. Instead, he gave that colossal sum to fund people whose main talent is being able to throw or kick a ball.
I was one of many people nationwide in the 1980s who dropped out of university due to lack of financial aid—while football and basketball jocks got full scholarships and everything handed to them on a silver platter. I had a B average in engineering, with my interests including hydrogen power and solar energy, and I kept hearing all this time that the US had a huge shortage of engineering majors. Apparently not enough of a shortage for someone like Pickens to step to the plate and ensure that people like me could complete our education, however. But I must have missed the news of the impending shortage of football and basketball players.
No, he has another agenda. In my opinion, Pickens's proposals are geared toward helping him make his next billion. Don't make the mistake of believing that he is attempting to be altruistic or patriotic. He has his finger in the pie and will find a way to profit mightily should anyone act on his energy plans.
Large solar arrays use a lot of land as well. I have seen a couple around the Sacramento area. Sure, we can put solar out in deserts. But again, the power still has to be moved from where it is generated to where it is needed. There are newer design fission reactors that are small in comparison to the power they create, and can be placed strategically, placed even underground. Perhaps treatment plants and the like, can be built with their own smaller scale power plants. Many plants built on river systems, paper mills especially, have their own hydro power plants built into the plant, giving them the ability to generate much of what they need. Not all, but it helps keep the load down on the grid - and also contribute to it when necessary.
I'd really just like to see all the B.S. rise to the surface and be put on the table, so it can truly be dealt with. I am truly tired of hearing what problems are out there, and that any and every answer is the wrong one. Things will come along. We have to be open and aware. Before internal combustion engines and electric trolleys, NY City was inundated with horse manure. That had to be swell.
Nuclear is feared largely because it is viewed as a form of magic. Had the present cultural & political climate existed when electricity was first introduced for lighting & power, it might well have been banned. At the very least, Edison would probably have gotten away with his sleazy fearmongering campaign against George Westinghouse's A.C. system, with very malign consequences for the economy and for non-urban families.
When it comes to power plants, smaller is not prettier. You want the biggest power plant technology allows you to build. The laws of thermodynamics say so. Nuclear and combustion-powered plants are essentially heat engines, and the laws of thermodynamics say that power and efficiency increase with the temperature differential in the heat engine. You can't get high temperature differentials in small plants because they have too much surface area for their volume, permitting heat to radiate away. Remember, area increases as the square of the radius, but volume increases as the cube. Ergo, you want big, even with the extra transmission losses.
Given hydro's current disfavor among the green crowd, those mill hydro plants probably wouldn't be approved today.
One thing is noticeable about the power generation technologies favored by greenies: they all have very low energy density and cannot, by themselves, support a large and prosperous industrial society. I suspect that for many of them getting rid of humans is precisely the point.
There was an article on T. Boone Pickens in BusinessWeek a few weeks back. It discussed how he had bought thousands of acres in West Texas, with millions of square feet of underground water, then paid off some politicians in the state legislature so that he could claim imminent domain--take land away from property owners--to build a pipeline from West to East Texas in order to sell fresh water to the city of Dallas.
And the city of Dallas hasn't even agreed to buy water from him!
This is about money, nothing else. The reason why Pickens is downplaying oil and promoting wind is because it profits him.
Yeah, wind power is great, if you like killing birds and bats. Solar power is great, if you don't mind spending thousands of dollars to upgrade your home or business. Alternative energy is great, if you don't mind the economic displacement necessary to implement it.
But to me, this whole argument is ridiculous. The most reliable and efficient sources of energy are oil, natural gas and coal. Nuclear energy is a viable alternative. But wind, solar and biofuels necessarily depend on an energy grid supported by the others, so the whole point of pursuing them is moot.
The U.S. has vast reserves of oil, natural gas and coal. We need to develop them and secure energy independence. Only the most gullible fool believes otherwise.
All the rest is, as the song goes, pissing in the wind.
Pickens is pushing wind as a way to push natural gas. Pickens has plenty of room on his property for windmills. Pickens has lots of natural gas to sell to cover the wind down time.
He also markets Compresed Natural Gas (CNG) as a vehicle fuel. In the 80s, in Australia, we were using CNG as an alternate to petrol. CNG was only competitive because of government subsidies. CNG did not have the same MPG as petrol.
As the above poster said, it's really about the water. Conning the state of Texas with windmills is just icing on the cake.
I don't think it can be stressed enough that not just the US, but North America could be energy independent inside 10 years if we had the willpower. Any delays are purely political, not technological.
(Having said that, I think energy independence is idiotic. We are a connected world and staying connected is the best path to peace and prosperity for all people.
As stated in an earlier post, the government subsidizes the installation of wind turbines.
I read recently of a fellow who was driving through an area of Texas with lots of windmills. His passeenger was an engineer with some knowledge of wind power.
The wind was blowing fiercely yet some windmills were not moving. The engineer said that the problem was that the government incentives only covered installation. As the windmills required repairs they were left unserviceable.
randian:
Micro, small, and medium hydro plants are being updated, fixed up, and re licensed all over the U.S. (www.ferc.gov) Lots of private investment. The company I am with is heavily involved in getting these things up and running. My personal involvement is on the rise; many projects on the books. Hydro holds more promise than solar or wind. They (I believe)are boondoggles like ethanol. Small scale on an individual's property, they are a good thing, if one can afford them. Those individuals who have them (privately) have them mainly from their ability to pay or distance from grid power, or the learning channel needs a new TV show. They "feel good", and can work for some in semi-remote places. But you can't run the usual amount of appliances at the same time without you personal power system costing more than your house did. The "real agenda" held by the left has been touched on by a few. At least, what I believe they are really up to, anyway.
As we all agree, fossil is the way to go. We have to develop what we have, and use it. Nuclear can do the job for electricity, provided we build the plants. There are new reactor designs out, high heat output designs, that do a lot more with less overall size. Earlier reactors did not put out the super heated steam that fossil types put out. Now, they can, and do. Something else we can thank our military for. Today's carriers have two reactors instead of eight, and they are faster and more powerful than the earlier Nimitz class were.
Aside from fuel, and every bit as important, we need lubricants. Everything will literally grind to a halt without them. Again, that's oil, even though synthetics have come a long way. When you "crack" oil, you're gonna get diesel, kerosene, gasoline, etc., to get lube oil. Hell, they used to throw gasoline away because all we wanted was oil for lamps, and we were getting low on whales.
Pickens is out for Pickens. I believe that. But, Dallas will need water, and we do need fuel. Somewhere along the line mankind will have massive change to deal with, though. I believe that.
Today is Labor Day, and there will be many speeches crediting *unions* for the development of a large American middle class.
I'm willing to give unions part of the credit, but the major element in the creation of the middle class was widely available and low-cost energy, particularly electrical energy. Societies in which energy came primarily from human and animal muscles were societies with extreme class distinctions, and sometimes actual slavery.
Windmills are an insanely bad energy idea. Pickens is pushing them only because of the federal tax subsidy, subsidies which he is pushing to increase, not because they make sense as power sources.
Television, radar, satellites, and the entire highway system are here because of huge tax breaks and government hand outs. Big new things need to have an entire infrastructure built up and the technology advanced. No private company is going to put up this money. They would incur a large part of the expense and only a small part of the profit. But the government reaps benefit from every company that makes money from the new advance and every private citizen the uses it.
We need other sources of power. I am also for the government increasing tax subsidies on wind power. Every country must spend money on emerging technologies, or get left behind and hurt their economies.
the problem with wind power is that the wind blows when it wants (or not), and not according to a set schedule. So you may have more available capacity when you don't need it, and not enough when you do. So you'll still have to have enough other sources of electrical power to keep up with daily demand if the wind stops blowing. Which is no different than simply building nuke/coal/gas power plants and no windmills.
Until battery storage is possible, the surplus power could be used to run a processing plant. This plant would have to be mostly automatic and be able to take production going up and down. Some people are using surplus solar or wind power to create hydrogen. They burn the hydrogen when sun and wind fail. Another possibility would be to run a waste treatment plant when supply is in excess. I am sure there are many other alternatives.
Also. If wind power only supplies 10% of a city’s energy. How is over one month’s worth of oil not being used, not a change? If 17% of the city’s energy need are being met. How is two months worth of energy per year nothing?
The environmental downside is that it is going to kill birds. A lot of birds. Birds that help keep the insect population in check.
The number of birds killed by windmills in tiny compared to the number of birds killed by large buildings with glass windows that leave their lights on at night. I have been hearing scientists say this for over ten years. Global climate change also kills birds. Some scientist believe West Nile was partially causes by global climate change. West Nile was bad for birds too.
Windmills need to be where the wind blow and land for their construction is available. This means that long transmission lines must be constructed to bring the power to the point of use
Power lines only need to be built to the nearest power lines, not all the way to the city. Most cities have plenty of power lines within fifty miles of the city
It's impossible to take Pickens's spiel seriously for one huge reason: he donated a whopping $165 million in 2006 to the Oklahoma State athletic department.
I want to put solar cells on my roof. Instead I spent $200 on a guitar. I must not be interested in solar.
A billionaire can afford to build windmills and give money away to a sports team
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