Open Letter to Boone Pickens 59 comments
an article to
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
Dear Boone,
I was very excited when you brought high-profile support for natural gas transportation and wind energy. I enthusiastically joined your “army” and still participate regularly on the PickensPlan website. We certainly could use more wealthy Americans helping to solve our foreign oil addiction crisis by patriotically supporting such critical energy initiatives. Buffett, Sergey & Larry, and Gates - are you listening?
Overall, Boone, you’ve done a great job! I heartily applaud your efforts. However, each of us can always improve, right? Therefore, I am writing you today in order to offer some constructive criticism.
You often say that natural gas transportation is critical in solving the economic and national security challenges facing the United States due to its 65% addiction to foreign oil. I totally agree with you (I’d also add environmental challenges to the list). That being the case, let me suggest that you begin by supporting political candidates that agree with your viewpoint. After all, as you yourself say, energy independence is such a critical matter it needs governmental support and encouragement. So why vote to elect politicians who disagree with your vision and oppose the necessary legislation? We need politicians who will craft legislation that removes the subsidies enjoyed by the oil and coal industries in order to level the playing field and allow greater adoption of natural gas for transportation.
Secondly, if you really want to reduce foreign oil imports and greenhouse gas emissions, you should support natural gas transportation for everyday cars and trucks. Why limit the effort to fleets and large trucks? There is a 2.2 million mile natural gas pipeline grid in America connected to 63,000,000 homes where 130,000,000 vehicles park every night. Doesn’t it make sense to utilize this tremendous and existing American asset to reduce foreign oil imports, reduce CO2 emissions and create millions of American jobs at the same time? What better way to prepare all Americans for the next peak-oil price spike (which will probably make 2008’s $145/barrel oil look like child’s play) than to enable them to refuel their cars and trucks at home with US produced natural gas?
My third piece of advice: support natural gas electrical generation. You keep saying you want to build wind farms so it will “free up natural gas for transportation”. But the US has an abundant supply of natural gas! So I suggest you begin supporting replacing dirty coal fired plants with natural gas generators. Although it is a bit too late, a bold statement would be to start with the Kingston Fossil Plant in TN where on Dec. 22, 2008 1.7 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash and sludge was spilled. Much of it ran into the Emory River, which feeds the Clinch River, which runs into the Tennessee River…but I am getting off topic here - back to NGVs.
In order to use existing home natural gas connections to refuel a vehicle in the garage, the consumer requires a home refueling device. The problem here is the only company to make such a device (the “Phill” by the Canadian firm Fuelmaker), does not service many states. Most people simply cannot buy a Phill no matter what the cost. That said, even if they are lucky enough to be in a state where the Phill is sold and serviced, it would cost around $4,000 uninstalled (!).
The engineer in me said, hey, I bet I could design a similar device, order 500,000 units from China (after all, we can’t seem to make anything in the US any more), sell them for $1,250 and still make a profit. Before starting the detailed design work, I thought it wise to research any patent protection the Phill might have in place. The first thing I learned in the patent search was that Fuelmaker is still owned by American Honda Motor Company (HMC). Apparently, last year’s attempted purchase of Fuelmaker by your firm, Clean Energy Fuels (CLNE), fell through.
There is a rumor in the NGV world that Honda is very close to finalizing a deal to sell Fuelmaker but the buyer is not confirmed. With 18 US patents and applications and 75 international patents and applications, Fuelmaker looks well protected by critical IP. The barriers to market participation by competitors are therefore quite formidable. Still, it is amazing there can be so many patents protecting a process (compressing natural gas) that man has been doing for nearly 100 years.
In summary - I can’t design my own refueling device without potentially getting sued, I can’t buy a Phill in my state, and even if I could buy a Phill it would cost me over $4k, probably closer to $5k installed. This is a very sad state of affairs if the goal here is to transition Americans off of foreign oil and onto US produced natural gas. Would you not agree?
In light of these realities Boone, my advice to you is: buy Fuelmaker, lower the price of the Phill, and expand its availability to all 50 states. Home refueling of NGVs is imperative to solving the chicken-n-egg problem of NGV/refueling. Alternatively, after purchasing the Fuelmaker, you could give me a written patent waiver absolving me of any competitive liability. Competition is what is needed here to make the device affordable for all Americans! After all, it’s critically important and patriotic that we get Americans using natural gas transportation, right?
The Phill is only one of two formidable availability issues in my state. I can’t even buy an NGV here! Of course there is only one NGV for sale anywhere in the US today, the Honda Civic GX, but only if you live in California or New York. So, how come I don’t hear you mentioning this fundamental barrier to widespread natural gas transportation? Please use your bully pulpit to mention this obvious barrier to natural gas transportation: most Americans simply cannot find an NGV to buy! What a sad commentary it is that Americans cannot buy an NGV at the same time that both Ford (F) and GM sell NGVs in Canada - a country that exports tar sands oil to the US! What a country… At the same time, conversion kits are very expensive and hampered by the EPA as well as federal and state regulations and certification issues.
In conclusion, in order to reduce foreign oil imports, CO2 emissions, and to enable the transition to natural gas transportation and NGVs, you can and should:
- vote for politicians that support natural gas transportation
- support natural gas for fleet AND non-fleet cars and trucks
- buy Fuelmaker, reduce the price of the Phill, and expand availability nationwide
- publicly chastise the automakers for not making NGVs available nationwide
It’s ironic the simple changes you yourself could make in order to better promote the policies you say are so critical to solving US economic, environmental, and national security problems. All that said, keep up the good work Boone!
Best regards,
Mike Fitzsimmons
Ps. Boone, once CLNE purchases Fuelmaker is there any chance you could send me a Phill for my birthday?
Pss. Then all I’ll have to do is find a Canadian with an NGV on eBay (EBAY)…
Psss: You-tube video of the Phill refueling a Honda Civic GX:
Disclosures: the author does not own Clean Energy Fuels or Honda Motor Corp, but he would invest in both companies if the Phill and the Honda Civic GX were available nationwide. He would also load up on Toyota Motor (TM) stock if Toyota would manufacture their electric/natural gas hybrid concept vehicle in volume for sale in the US.
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Authors with the largest
increase in followers
in the last 7 days-
1
TraderMark
-
2
David Fry
-
3
Peter Schiff
-
4
Ashraf Laidi
-
5
Philip Davis
Fastest Climbers » -
1
-
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most active
Instabloggers.-
1
David Fry
-
2
TraderMark
-
3
Don Dion
-
4
Cliff Wachtel
-
5
Mike Havrilla
Top Instabloggers » -
1
-
Top StockTalkers
Top
StockTalkers.-
1
David Fry
-
2
Cliff Wachtel
-
3
Mike Havrilla
-
4
David White
-
5
Hedged In
Top StockTalkers » -
1
Right on !
I have a small amount of Stock in Thorium Power Ltd.
They have a way to go to build a Commercial Nuclear
Power Plant, but they are working on it, (with Russia
no less.)
If you want to know about the future of Nuclear Power,
Google:
Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor.
Meltdown ?
Impossible !
Bobby Curto
Ft. Lauderdale
Ps. To Mike.
Thanks for your response.
So you are only 99% correct, I can live with that.
Could you transplant a nose on your smiley ? :-)
On Mar 18 06:21 PM Econ 101 wrote:
> Fitz,
>
> I like your ideas but I have a problem with Pickens. I think all
> he really wants is a right of way to transport the water resources
> accross mid america. Selling water is his real goal.
>
> Second why dont you look at Thorium as a nuclear fuel? I understand
> the pols dont really want nuclear as a source of energy, but Thorium
> adresses many of the current objections and even solves the waste
> problem!
Econ 101,
Right on !
I have a small amount of stock in Thorium Power Ltd.
They have a way to go to build a Commercial Nuclear Power Plant, but they are working on it, (with Russia no less.)
If you want to know about the future of Nuclear Power
Google:
Pebble Bed Nuclear Reactor.
Meltdown ?
Impossible !
Bobby Curto
Ft. Lauderdale
Ps To Mike
Thanks for your response.
So you are only 99% correct, I can live with that.
Could you transplant a nose on your smiley ? :-)
mediapro: ok, you are responding to belseware because we are in agreement on the subsidy problem (and did you factor in the military cost of the pentagon/petroleum relationship?). as far as the $100k SS cap, you're still looking for an answer :) plz let me know when u get one. while you're at it, find out why multimillionaires still get SS checks every month. i mean if we are bankrupt (we are), let's get pragmatic and make some easily rationale tradeoffs. puerile (def): juvenile, childish.
mediapro (2): well, the infrastructure would be there with a Phill. 95% of american trips are way under the 200 mile range of a NGV like the Civic GX. so, as a second car, they would sell (imho).
Mike135: wow! a honda guy. glad to have you and thanks for posting. as far as being marketing tools only, i can tell you from the personal emails i have been getting on my NGV blogs you guys are sitting on a gold mine and, quite simply, blowing it. there are thousands of people out there who can't buy a honda civic GX or a Phill. that is a problem. i swear, you get me a job at honda, and i will turn your NGV and Phill business into a multi-billion dollar revenue generator within 5 years! CNG would make gasification profitable?? how do you figure that? mining and converting coal would be cheaper than sinking a well into the haynesville shale? no way, i don't even have to run the numbers to know that. natural gas is ABUNDANT. biomass is also ridiculous when natural gas is ABUNDANT. sorry for the big letters, but it is the truth. look at the price now (under $3.80). sure some of that is a big drop in demand, but another part of that is the huge increase in supply. the natural gas is there. no need to liquify, convert from coal, mix it with something else. it is CJ4, it is methane, it is cheap, clean, and abundant. you guys at honda are sitting on a gold mine because you don't know how to make the Phill and the car available to the thousands of people around the country who would love to have a CNG car but can't acquire the car or the phill or both. once you get the phill and the car out there in quantity, then the CNG stations come, then you *really* have a gold mine. it is going to happen sooner or later. honda is currently in the drivers seat, but if you blow it (as you are now), you'll be in the backseat watching someone else run off with the market you owned. just ask motorola how easy that is. i mean come on, American Honda Motor was going to sell out to Pickens' CLNE!! why on earth would they do something like that when they have the GX and the patents covering it? they could be printing cash if they knew how to manage these assets. i live in middle tn, the local honda dealer (30 miles away) wont sell me a GX. the Phill isnt serviced or sold by anyone in my state. this is the norm, not the exception. just think if honda put a CNG refueling station on or next to their dealerships and made getting a Phill part of the experience of buying the GX? sure, there are some regulatory issues here, but they are all solvable. the synergies are unbelievable.
Sorry for the duplicate.
Can you delete one ?
Thanks,
Bobby Curto
www.uniongas.com/about...
Of course that was in the 1990s, I guess. A big part of the problem is the energy density. A CNG tank with equivalent range takes up about 4 times the space of a gasoline tank. So unless you have a vehicle specifically built (where the tank covers a large area under the car) it means bye bye to trunk space. And I think natural gas also has an infrastructure problem, which limits the ability to utilize it. They call that "stranded gas", meaning it's there but there's no good way to economically transport it. But .... that doesn't mean it can't be explored. It does mean that it needs more calculation than back-of-the-envelope.
Like a Japanese Koan you distilled the entire debate about the move to alternative energy into a visual poem.
Here we are reading a most informed author, a few followers, and people keenly interested in arranging the proverbial deck chairs. It is as if everyone and no one have an answer to how we remove our mouths from the oily tit or kiss our ass goodbye.
Your style is what this site needs more!
On Mar 18 04:57 PM nakedjaybird wrote:
> Dear god - please flood the earth again so we can replenish our oil,
> coal and gas natural (sic) resources. forgive us in how we mismanaged
> what you gave us the first time.
>
> earthman.
Just watched a 2008 special last night on the National Geographic Channel showing the actual ocean water temperature measurements over the last decade and their effects on glaciers. Warmer sea waters intruding on the glacial shelf forms ponds within the glacier and this water seeps down to the bottom of the glacier. That forms an effect similar to grease on skids, increasing the speed of galcier creep by as much as 1"/day. The result is a prediction, based on current rates, of an 80% depletion of the Greenland ice sheet alone by 2020. If all glacier melt were accelerated at such a rate, we could expect a sea water rise of as much as 20 feet by the middle of this century.
Hope the poster doesn't own any land in Florida or Manhatten!
As for what's a theory, perhaps the poster needs a trip back to grammar school. A theory is a testable hypothesis (repeatable over time) demonstrating confidence of the theory over many years and many situations, such that it is a predictive model of expected results. This allows scientists to look a real world outcomes.
Though he didn't mention the alternative, as most of these nut cases seem to forget when they make such outlandish claims, "intelligent design theory" (it is neither a theory nor a very good name for an hypothesis) is a circular argument. Their claims amount to: "Look at the complexity of organisms (events, animals, nature in general). Evolution theory could never explain how these intricate mechanisms developed. Therefore, they must be a result of design by an unknown intelligence."
The problem with this apriori approach is that it is an untestable hypothesis (at best) because when something is "created" out of thin air, that's the best explanation possible. It cannot be tested, repeated, nor ever proven. Such a possibility only exists in the minds of the gullible and ignorant.
The same can be said of its economic equivalent, the Laffer Curve.
On Mar 18 01:37 PM yank wrote:
> Interesting in that now that we have had a global "cooling" since
> 1998 "global warming" has been replaced with the term "climate change".
> Al Gore at a recent California lecture was challenged by a scientist
> skeptical of the "climate change" fiasco. Sadly, Al declined to converse
> with the dubious scientist. Of course going unchallenged on a daily
> basis is the list of thousands of accomplished scientists from all
> over the world who very clearly have stated that "climate change"
> like evolution is an UNPROVEN THEORY and not fact. Spending billions
> of dollars that we don't have on solving an unproven problem sounds
> like the very definition of "insanity" to me.
www.ogj.com/display_ar...
On Mar 18 09:22 PM Mike125 wrote:
> Possible conflict of interest: I am an engineer with Honda.
>
> We love the GX, we love the Phil, but they really are only worth
> marketing aggressivly in New York and California. We basically are
> selling the car for what it costs to manufacture, as a point of pride
> as much as anything else.
>
> It was the same way with the orginal Insight, we sold it at a loss
> so that every list of fuel efficiency had the name Honda at the top.
>
>
> For me fossil fuels are capital, and you don't spend more capital
> than necessary for day to day needs. You invest the capital in order
> to get a return that is used to meet daily needs. Solar thermal is
> probable one of the best examples, the Chinese are building water
> and space heaters as fast as possible. I would have to order one
> from New York and have it shipped 1000miles, or build my own. <br/>
>
> Widespread use of CNG would likley cause coal gasification to become
> profitable, which might someday lead to biomass gasification etc.
>
>
> Here is a site that tracks CNG gas stations.
>
> find.mapmuse.com/inter...
>
> Mike
nakedjaybird: you still don't get it: natural gas is the bridge to the renewable and hydrogen futures. 100 years isn't good enough for you? you'd rather stick with dirty foreign oil. i know you won't have read the book, which is why i continue to read your imbecilic posts on here.
AlexS: if you convert a gasoline car, and leave the gasoline tank in so you can run bi-fuel, then yes, you will take up some room with the CNG tanks. if you buy a new NGV with the CNG tanks built in, you won't have this problem. i have covered the refueling infrastructure ad nuseum so i won't address that issue over again other than to mention with a Phill you simply refuel in your garage. so, if you think of it that way, gasoline is actually harder to obtain (i.e. it doesnt come to your house, you go to it).
mediapro: i've completely given up on that one....and he refuses to read a book that could help lead him out of the darkness he likes living in. hard to feel sorry for someone that refuses to help himself after being shown how...
AlexS: you seem so happy about this news, when it is you and your country that will suffer from what this article has to say. so, have fun whistling past the graveyard.
WiseGas: because of your assistance, i just got off the phone with Honda's AFV consultant. he said honda is doubling their yearly production of GX's and they are already sold out for the year. they plan on doubling again next year. i find it hard to believe myself that they are losing so much on each GX because the price is already fairly stiff and so many of the car parts are reused from the gasoline Civic. oh, and he also said he knows a honda dealer that DOES bundle the Phill with the car, and can finance both into a single loan. so, at least some states can do this and i am really wondering about the Honda dealer that told me it was against state law to do so. honda is sitting on a gold mine. the GX and the Phill, together, could easily be a multi-billion dollar business within 3 years.
Honda is a wonderful company to work for but expanding GX production, while worthwhile eventually, would be expensive and risky. Especially in the current market.
And while Honda does place a priority on community responsibility it also places a high priority on its responsiblity to protect the livelyhood of its employees and the assets of its shareholders. It is a major mark of pride to all of us that Honda has NEVER laid off an employee.
That means the responsible way to increase production is slowly and with careful attention to the market. Yes that means it's not going to happen as soon as we all would like, but if the market is there it will happen.
Honda never does anything quickly, it just not our way. As a result we don't make an SUV, thank god. But when we do something we do it right, as a result every model in Honda's lineup, including the GX, is capable of being made on the same presses and equipment that are in every Honda plant. Remember the multi-billion dollar loan to retool that the government gave to the big 3, we laughed at Honda because all we would need to do it have dies made and every Honda plant in the world could switch to another model. We are proud of the fact that the 2010 models will roll down the line intermixed with 2009's with one car length in front and behind them, not a month of downtime that is required by the big 3.
We can ramp up production anytime to almost any level we want to. As a result we can afford to be careful in how many we make. And it means that we can produce the next generations of GX or Insight as the designs get more cost efficent and the production technology for the parts is developed and commercialized.
There is no conspiracy to suppress the technology, just a very deliberate attempt not to overextend ourselves. The fact that the deal with Picken's was killed is actually a good sign as far as I can tell since it says Honda wants to stay in the mix.
As far a coal gasification goes, if the price of coal goes down as the price of wind goes down and the price of natural gas goes up as more and more of this type of car is on the road, gasification will happen. Coal production capacity is simply too large for the profits not to become obvious to the mine owners. Why explore for gas when the price per KWH still favors coal and gasification is 75% efficient. Do you expect them to idle capacity rather than gasify?
Biomass gasification has to do with ethanol, why hydrolysis and ferment cellulose when you can convert it directly to syngas for use as automotive fuel. Its lot cheaper and more efficient. And the price per acre beats the heck out of soybeans. Natural gas used to be called "town gas" and a lot of farmers produced it in gasifiers as a side business.
Mike
I had completely forgotten about the SS cap at $100k since I stopped contributing and started getting the benefit, taxed or not.
The cap should be removed. No limit to SS contributions,
And it should be applied to all sources of income, bonus payments, parachutes, retention contracts, any payments in lieu of cash be they options, stock, warrants, or even perks, land, goods, property, etc.,
And then, they should apply the tax to capital gains above $20,000/yr be they from stock et,al, coins, stamps, antiques, art, autos, etc.
And then beef up the audit staff and/or build more jails.
On Mar 17 11:07 AM belseware wrote:
> GET REAL. "We need politicians who will craft legislation that removes
> the subsidies enjoyed by the oil and coal industries in order to
> level the playing field"
>
> FUEL Subsidy
> SOURCE per MWh
> Oil (?)
> Coal $0.44
> Natural Gas $0.25
> Nuclear $1.59
> Biomass $0.89
> Geothermal $0.92
> Hydro $0.67
> Landfill Gas $1.37
> SOLAR >>>$24.34<...
> WIND >>>$23.37<...
> Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
>
> OK, I agree promoting NGVs beats heck out of stuffing wind and solar
> down our throats.
>
At Docklands Science Park in Melbourne, Australia, we do have the Environmental Engine (EE) with compression ratio variable by a factor of two, i.e. from 9 to 18:1 so it can run on any normally available fuel.
Playing around with natural gas at compression ratios of less than 14:1 is a waste of a lot of fuel. EE will automatically set the compression ratio to gain the highest heat release, regardless of the fuel or fuel mix. With gaseous fuels you need variable compression.
See our website "docscipark.com.au".
While Phill may be OK, we have a compressor which does not add oil to the gas so emissions are greatly improved and a claim of natural gas enthusiasts is better emissions.
Your own DOE states that propane is the best alternative fuel. On emissions and economy, we agree.
Propane is largely obtained as a by-product of producing natural gas from wells, plus petroleum refining and there is normally little propane in coal bed methane gas.
We think Boone and others need to ensure the equipment is there to burn the fuel to best advantage. Variable compression means that you can go to the best (emissions) and cheapest source of hydrocarbon fuels. A number of tanks in the vehicle may be useful, or a multi-fuel tank the like of which we are yet to see!
John
John
Our energy problem could have been solved 67 years ago.