Alamo

Open Letter to Boone Pickens

Fitz,
There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that we should be doing everything we can as a nation to develop natural gas as our primary transportation fuel.

The dollar drain on our economy; the negative foreign policy entanglements; the national security issues all represent crises that must be addressed and utilizing natural gas is a doable and available solution to solving those problems.

No one believes that natural gas is the ultimate energy solution, but we need to have a functioning mobile nation while we transition to solar, wind, geothermal and other sources of energy. If we have as the experts have stated, something like 50 to a 100 years' worth of natural gas reserves, that should give us a sufficient time to perfect future energy technology. (And install the infrastructure that will be required to support the new technolgy) Added exploration is INCREASING American gas reserves--not so for crude oil.

Continuation of the "policy" (?) of importing 12 million barrels of crude every day is endangering and ultimately bankrupting America not to mention the disastrous foreign policy catastrophies we have witnessed in support of such idiocy.

Congress must be forced or threatened into action as their inaction since the Arab oil embargo of 1973 rather proves they won't do a damn thing without holding their collective feet to the fire.

Thanks for the excellent post.

The Pickens Plan Changes Its Strategy

A barrell of crude oil has approx, 5.8 million BTUs of heat energy and 1000
cubic ft of natural gas (mcf) contains approx 1 million BTUs---these are the generally accepted heat values. Crude oil is currently priced at about $65 per barrell whereas natural gas is about $6.50 per mcf or 58 per cent the cost of crude.

Oxidizing (ie; burning) crude versus nat. gas is 75 per cent or more polluting than natural gas. Shipping crude 6,000 miles by tanker presents additional pollution problems---anyone remember the Exxon Valdez environmental disaster? Alaskans and Exxon Mobil certainly do.

The EPA has said that the Honda Civic GX was the least pollouting vehicle they have ever tested---including the Toyota Prius. Anyone interested in burning crude, diesel or gasoline in their kitchen stove? I don't think so.

With the foreign policy disasters directly traceable to our reliance on crude supplies that we have to control with our military---a very deadly and unsustainably costly "control", I frankly cannot imagine why anyone would support any continuation of that insane policy. As world oil continues to decline we can anticipate 2 things: 1) more militarism and 2) economic ruin.

It is an absolute certainty that we must maintain an efficient and affordable transportation system fueled by an American produced energy source. In the immediate short term natural gas as the preferential fuel is an almost providential solution. Its American, its abundantly available, its less expensive and far cleaner than crude oil based fuels--gasoline or diesel. 40 per cent cheaper and 80 per cent less polluting and all-American. Win, win, win and WIND!

We need to bow our collective American necks and demand this change now.

How You Can Invest in the Pickens Plan

Whenever you are considering the pros and cons of the Pickens Plan
one "pro" that should be considered but rarely is, is the cost of defending a difficult to find and increasingly expensive substance called crude oil", or perhaps more appropriately, "cruel oil".

If everyone factors in the requisite defense and war costs of God awful escapades like Iraq (estimated to be in the 3-5 trillion dollar range overall) coupled with economic servitude to the likes of OPEC nations
the "pros" should take on additional weight.

How many wars, lives lost and national treasure squandered will it take to make us wake up to the fact that reliance on foreigners for a central element in our economy (transportation of goods, services and ourselves) is a dead end indeed?

If our national net economic loss is 700 billion dollars as Pickens suggests, adding in Professor Joseph Stiglitz' 3-5 trillion dollars makes the cost absolutely prohibitive and a minor thing like the human cost increases that figure beyond an imaginable level.

With the discovery of the recent massive reserves of natural gas there is no sane reason to do whatever is necessary to break up our dependence on the most un-American fuel of all, crude oil.

How You Can Invest in the Pickens Plan

Whenever you are considering the pros and cons of the Pickens Plan
one "pro" that should be considered but rarely is, is the cost of defending a difficult to find and increasingly expensive substance called crude oil", or perhaps more appropriately, "cruel oil".

If everyone factors in the requisite defense and war costs of God awful escapades like Iraq (estimated to be in the 3-5 trillion dollar range overall) coupled with economic servitude to the likes of OPEC nations
the "pros" should take on additional weight.

How many wars, lives lost and national treasure squandered will it take to make us wake up to the fact that reliance on foreigners for a central element in our economy (transportation of goods, services and ourselves) is a dead end indeed?

If our national net economic loss is 700 billion dollars as Pickens suggests, adding in Professor Joseph Stiglitz' 3-5 trillion dollars makes the cost absolutely prohibitive and a minor thing like the human cost increases that figure beyond an imaginable level.

With the discovery of the recent massive reserves of natural gas there is no sane reason to do whatever is necessary to break up our dependence on the most un-American fuel of all, crude oil.

Is There a Future for NG Powered Vehicles?

I couldn't agree more.

Natural gas is the means by which we can remove those grasping, greedy hands from around our economy's neck. I have stated that we don't need to "invent" anything, or need a "Manhattan" type effort or an equivalent "crash" program similar to the man on the moon project, but I was dead wrong. We as a nation need to expend the equivalent effort immediately that we did in the programs mentioned above. We must invent the motivation, the expertise and the unified national effort to regain control of our economic future and we cannot do it by continuing the massive wealth drain currently dragging us toward third worldom.

Why would anyone who calls himself or herself an American, not do their absolute utmost to get our country's economy under our control rather than that of a bunch of foreign despots who hate our very guts.While smirking their way to their banks with OUR dollars. Let them drink their damn crude; a filthy, murdering substance that we do not have, cannot afford, should not want and certainly do not need.

The necessary effort we need is to demand that our Congress lead the way toward an independent future by promoting programs necessary to switch the nation to a transportation system grounded on natural gas.

A letter to your Senators and Representatives at both the state and federal level would be an excellent beginning.