Oct 14, 2008 7:48 pm US/Central
Pickens Plan: Reduce Oil Consumption
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Investor Boone Pickens announced on May 16, 2007 that he is making a conditional $100 million dollar donation to two University of Texas medical centers.
AP
When gas spiked above $4 a gallon this summer, Americans were reminded
just how volatile our dependence on foreign oil is. But now there is a
man with a plan to reduce our oil consumption, and you might be
surprised to know that he made billions in the oil and gas industry.
CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago's Rob Johnson sat down with oil baron,
corporate raider, and now wind energy advocate T. Boone Pickens.
During the 1980s Thomas Boone Pickens made his name and his fortune buying, running and sometimes raiding oil companies. But after his enormous success in that industry, the 80-year-old Pickens is changing his tune.
"We cannot go through another 40 years without having an energy plan," Pickens said.
Today he is more college professor than oil executive, writing on a grease board crunching numbers at town hall meetings all over America like this one at Navy Pier Tuesday.
"I am the only person in America that has an energy plan," Pickens said.
Pickens explains how the oil crunch could be America's downfall - which is why he's launched the Pickens Plan, an ambitious effort to become more reliant on wind and natural gas within the decade - financed in part by $58 million of his own money.
Pickens talked wind with WBBM-TV - specifically opening the world's largest wind farm in the Texas panhandle, envisioning someday wind turbines from Texas to Canada.
"Wind is the corridor of renewable energy that we have from Texas to Canada. It should be developed," Pickens said.
Pickens' sense of urgency is based upon his belief that the $700 billion a year we spend on foreign oil will only grow larger, potentially making gasoline a luxury most won't be able to afford.
"$300 a barrel is what you're looking at," Pickens said.
Pickens' campaign has caught the eye of the presidential campaigns, but he bristles at the thought of McCain's reliance on nuclear energy and Obama's plan to put one million hybrid cars on the road.
"Not that we're just gonna have nuclear reactors or that we're gonna have a million plug-in hybrids," Pickens said. "I want to know a plan to reduce the$700 billion that's a ticking bomb right there, and I can hear it ticking."
Pickens says that once his town hall meetings have ended and the election has occurred, his next order of business is to pressure new administration officials to enact real energy policy within the first 100 days in office.
For more information on the Pickens Plan, visit
http://www.pickensplan.com/
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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