The Pickens Plan

[full time]

The stuff Boone and Gore are talking about is the most expensive means of delivering a Kilowatt of power - that's why we only provide about 2% of the nation's power through wind, solar and renewables. You're gonna need a loan from ole T. Boone to pay power bills under these plans. Oh well, I supose the new mantra of the global warming crowd should be "let them eat cake".


http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20080722/cm_rcp/gores_plan_just_a_dream

 

[Here4Good]

Boone's position doesn't have a thing to do with Al Gore or global warming. Go and read it.

Let's not dump everything that's not oil into one category.

 

[full time]

I still don't understand why this catches your fancy more than nuclear power unless you fall into the Gore camp who wants nothing to do with nuclear. I don't have a problem with Boone's plan if it rises and falls on its own economic merits, but by most accounts, it's going to require billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies.

 

[scooterbug44]

Yes, taken independently wind power is not a 100% solution to our dependence on oil, but it can make a big difference in our energy production/use and IS a solution when combined with other alternative sources.

Nuclear power is not an acceptable solution IMO.

 

[Gypsea]

I think this is fascinating:

http://www.pickensplan.com

I also think it will work, and I know that he's generating a great deal of interest, at the perfect time to engage the presidential candidates.

I'm all for T. Boone. He sure beats all of the other oil dudes.

 

[Miss Critter]

Why would wind and solar make more sense than nuclear (very clean burning), natural gas and coal (of which the US controls 25% of the world's reserves)? Support for this stuff is based upon receiving billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies (is that what you mean by sacrifice because if so, no thanks, I've already given to the corn ethanol hucksters). And before the global warming folks get up in arms, the guy who brought global warming to the forefront, now says that after years of sending thermostat laced weather baloons into the atmosphere, scientists can locate NO hotspots.

Yes, nuclear is very clean burning and produces RADIOACTIVE WASTE THAT REMAINS ACTIVE FOR 10,000 YEARS! Plus, from http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fact-sheet_ne&w.htm
Plutonium is a man-made waste product of nuclear fission, which can be used either for fuel in nuclear power plants or for bombs.

• In the year 2000, an estimated 310 tons (620,000 pounds) of civilian, weapons-usable plutonium had been produced.
• Less than 8 kilograms (about 18 pounds) of plutonium is enough for one Nagasaki-type bomb. Thus, in the year 2000 alone, enough plutonium was created to make more than 34,000 nuclear weapons.
• The technology for producing nuclear energy that is shared among nations, particularly the process that turns raw uranium into lowly-enriched uranium, can also be used to produce highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is responsible for monitoring the world?s nuclear facilities and for preventing weapons proliferation, but their safeguards have serious shortcomings. Though the IAEA is promoting additional safeguards agreements to increase the effectiveness of their inspections, the agency acknowledges that, due to measurement uncertainties, it cannot detect all possible diversions of nuclear material. (Nuclear Control Institute)

 

[Here4Good]

I still don't understand why this catches your fancy more than nuclear power unless you fall into the Gore camp who wants nothing to do with nuclear. I don't have a problem with Boone's plan if it rises and falls on its own economic merits, but by most accounts, it's going to require billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies.

Because the waste from a wind farm doesn't have the potential to kill everything in a 100-mile radius.

EVERYTHING requires taxpayer subsidies! That's what an national energy policy is, not just a plan to transfer all of the money in our pockets to the pockets of the oil companies! We subsidize ethanol, we subsidize coal, and, outside of energy, we subsidize milk, for Pete's sake!

I say let milk stand on it's own economic merit, dammit! Get that cow off welfare! We subsidize the real estate industry, through tax breaks for homeownership. We subsidize higher learning through tax credits.

This is not a free market, let's stop pretending it is. It's not Europe, where the economic controls are so rigid, but it is not a free market as long as we have an IRS code that attempts to control consumer behavior, government subsidies and tariffs, sin taxes and varying levels of sales taxes on various goods.

As long as the government is trying to drive producer and consumer behavior, let's have a cohesive long-range plan to put around all of these subsidies and taxes.

 

[full time]

Boone's position doesn't have a thing to do with Al Gore or global warming. Go and read it.

Let's not dump everything that's not oil into one category.

I found this little nugget for you as well. At the congressional hearing at which Boone testified, it was relayed that Boone's natural gas substitute was a "spectacularly bad idea" because "63% of the world's natural gas reserves are under the control of Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates."

I hear you on the subsidies, except when we start subsidizing things that do not make econmic sense in order to promote the evironmental global warming agenda, that's a bad idea. As far as "killing everyone within a 100 mile radius", that's why I began this saying that gas will eventually get to a price where politicians have the cover to implement our nation's alternative energy policy which is nuclear. Obviously, energy for you is not yet too expensive so you continue promoting mass hysteria to support your environmental views. And with that, I'll end the discussion.

 

[Here4Good]

Obviously, energy for you is not yet too expensive so you continue promoting mass hysteria to support your environmental views. And with that, I'll end the discussion.

Um, I never said this was about the environment.

That was Al Gore. He's much taller.

For me personally, this is about the economy, and national security. You can't plan your business when you don't have a clue what energy is going to cost. I heard an interview on the radio last week with a man who is moving his plant out of the US not because of labor costs, but because of the lack of an energy policy.

Energy is a staple of our business community, and when the cost doubles in less than two years, yeah, I get a little hysterical. We have not yet begun to see the real effects of this in consumer prices.

 

[TooFarTampa]

I am frustrated that we have not heard more about solar power solutions in Florida. Just like Brazil can grow sugar cane for ethanol, we Flori-duh-ans can put some of those rays to good use. One would think that mass production of solar panels would bring the costs down, but I don't know anything about the business.