Just for the record, I am a fan of T. Boone Pickens' Alternative Energy Plan.The Mission Statement - "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 1/3 of our Foreign Oil Imports. And we can do it all in 10 years."
http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/
BP on Crude Oil (The Crisis):
* In 1970 the U.S. imported 24% of its CRUDE Oil needs..now this number is about 70%
* At current oil prices ($130 a barrell), we spend about $700 billion dollars a year importing crude oil into the U.S. — this is 4 times the annual cost of the Iraq war
* The U.S., 4% of the world's population, accounts for about 25% of the world's oil demand (every day 85 million barrels of oil are produced around the world and 21 million of those are used here in the United States.)
* World oil production peaked in 2005 (TB is a believer in 'Peak Oil'). Despite growing demand and an unprecedented increase in prices, oil production has fallen over the last three years.
BP on Wind Power (solution for electricity):
* The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of Wind power as studies from around the world show that the Great Plains states (Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming) are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world.
* Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.
BP on Natural Gas (solution for transportation fuel):
* Natural Gas is the cleanest transportation (autos) fuel available today...According to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline.
* Natural gas vehicles (NGV) are already available and combine top performance with low emissions...there are more than 7 million NGVs in use worldwide, but only 150,000 of those are in the United States (2%).
* Natural gas is our country's 2nd largest energy resource (COAL is #1) and a vital component of our energy supply. 98% of the natural gas used in the United States is from North America. But 70% of our oil is purchased from foreign nations.
* Domestic natural gas reserves are twice that of petroleum. And new discoveries of natural gas and ongoing development of renewable biogas are continually adding to existing reserves.
* We currently use natural gas to produce 22% of our Electricity. Harnessing the power of wind to generate electricity will give us the flexibility to shift natural gas away from electricity generation and put it to use as a transportation fuel — reducing our dependence on foreign oil by more than one-third.
Data Courtesy: PickensPlan.com
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