Pick'n a Plan and Stick'n to It

First of all, let me say I'm sorry for the delay in any new content from my fingertips. It's been a pretty busy month for me -- traveling for work training, more work, traveling home to hunt for a house, buying a house (yippee!!), and traveling back to work... and more work.



So, it should come as no surprise that I am still writing about the same topic I was writing about a month ago: Energy.



And why not? Each and every one of us are intimately connected to this problem of energy consumption simply by the way we live our lives. We've all heard over and over by now about how each of us can individually make changes in our lives and influence our overall national consumption... well, while that is certainly true, it should also come as no surprise that some have more they can do than others.



One of those people is a man named T. Boone Pickens (possibly nicknamed T-Bone). T. Boone has some resources, being a billionaire oil man. But, more importantly, he's got a plan (something we here at Mid-America Calling enjoy). It can be found here: http://www.pickensplan.com/



Now, I don't know whether I'm sold on the plan yet or not... but at least he's got one. He's right in saying that we are a country addicted to oil, and we can't drill our way out of that problem. And he's right to be looking for solutions to this multi-faceted problem. He does a good job of pointing out just how this issue radiates throughout the economy, as well.



$700 billion dollars a year is currently being spent on importing foreign oil to meet our demands for fueling our cars and trucks. That's a ton of money going elsewhere. That means it's not being spent on our own infrastructure... it's not being spent on our schools. It isn't being spent on a viable solution to our health-care crisis. You get the idea...



Pickens' plan calls for utilizing the wind of our own great plains. He calls our geographic mid-America the "Saudi Arabia of wind power." And while the cost to expand our wind power production to 25% of our national need is expensive -- something like $1.2 trillion -- it is a one-time price paid up-front, and pales in comparison to the price of continuing to spend $700 billion each year to foreign nations.



Now, obviously adding wind power production doesn't help power our cars... so how exactly does this lower our dependence on foreign oil? Pickens has something else in mind. By increasing wind power, we free up something else for our cars -- natural gas. Natural Gas currently provides 22% of our current electrical power in the U.S. at a much cheaper cost per gallon than we spend on gasoline. The idea is that by replacing our current electrical use of natural gas with wind power, we can use the cleaner burning, cheaper natural gas to fuel our vehicles. Makes sense, right?

T. Bone touts the price of natural gas as being less than a dollar per gallon in much of the country, which would certainly be a welcome change from spending $4.00 at the pump for gasoline. He also touts the difference in emissions from natural gas as opposed to petrol. He's right, yet again, on both counts.

So, what is the hesitation? Well, firstly we have to think about what this does if his plan is put into full-swing. Just off the top of my head I can tell you that the relatively low cost of natural gas won't stay that low for long. Imagine if every corner gas station had natural gas pumps. Demand shoots through the roof and we're no longer able to claim that it's a cheaper alternative to gasoline.

This isn't even taking into account what it would do to other uses of natural gas -- such as heating homes during the winter months. Many Americans are already struggling to pay heating bills in the dead of winter... and having the demand for that natural gas spread out to running our cars and trucks won't do anything to help those folks.

But, perhaps the lowered demand for electricity production will ultimately balance out the rising demand for vehicle fuel. Maybe, maybe not... but it's definitely an issue which his plan doesn't take any steps to address.

But, at least ol' T-bone does recognize that his plan is only a temporary solution to a problem which needs a lot more work. He states that the plan can "buy us time" until we work out better and cheaper ways of powering our everyday lives. And as far as band-aids go, this one looks to be one of the better plans out there.

I recommend checking out the plan, and if you like what you see, sign up on his site! Forget that T-bone has considerable holdings in Natural Gas and stands to make a ton of money off it... Good ideas should be rewarded, and at least he's got a level of foresight to realize that drilling in ANWR isn't going to make a lick's bit of difference. And diverting $700 billion a year from foreign countries to American infrastructure and jobs can't hurt, either.

So, I'm pickin' Pickens' plan... and stickin' to it... for now.