Ziptrek Ecotours

Pickens' Plan

December 2008

T. Boone Pickens has a plan, and he’s doing everything in his power to get us on board.  By targeting America’s dependence on foreign oil, he believes the economy can be strengthened, the environment can be protected, and security can be improved. The eighty-year-old oil billionaire has spent a fortune trying to get us to listen, and as a new administration in the U.S. prepares a new energy plan, it looks as though his efforts may have paid off. So what’s in the plan?

Pickens notes that the United States is blessed with the world's greatest wind power corridor and abundant reserves of clean natural gas. His 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 that will buy time to develop even greater new technologies.

Pickens’ Plan calls for building new wind generation facilities that will produce 20% of the United States’ electricity. It also depends heavily on the use of natural gas as a transportation fuel. The plan recognizes that commercial trucking still needs fossil fuels, so cleaner, abundant natural gas is still needed for quick change. The combination of these domestic energies can replace more than one-third of their foreign oil imports.

No matter your concern with U.S. foreign policy (or lack thereof), there is tremendous appeal in the passionate old man’s plan. To begin with, it seems possible. The balanced attack on economic, security and environmental concerns make it more immune to partisan attack. It’s also practical. It looks to produce real change in ten years, that require considerable but not unrealistic effort. And finally, it’s a start. A meaningful change in energy policy is long overdue, and these initial steps will lead the way for other nations (like ours) to follow suit and carry the possibilities even further.

Skyrocketing fuel costs and economic collapse may not have been enough. We may have needed an aging oilman to get a plan moving. To see it in more depth check out www.pickensplan.com.