What's with T Boone Pickens' commericals re: energy?

[Hamlette]

Apparently he wants to use wind energy to replace foreign oil. He's got a hard hitting ad on TV which is very effective.

What's his story? Why? He wants to pay for it with private money. What's in it for him? He's financing the ads.

Anyone have a back story on this?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I suppose he's figured out another way to make money.

Probably owns a bunch of patents or something.

[tech3149]

20. OK' where did you get a face shot of my cat? n/t

[RB TexLa]

2. Because he's a racist and doesn't want Arabs to get money from us.

[nomorenomore08]

3. As I said in an earlier post, a lot of people could get very wealthy off of "saving the Earth."

Think about, not just alternative energy, but also growing millions of acres of hemp (a very hardy, low-maintenance crop BTW) to make products (everything from fabrics to paints to plastics) that are now made from petroleum. Hopefully the right people will see the fortunes to be made, and jump on it.

[Aqaba]

9. Don't forget big fat joints!

[tularetom]

4. I smell a sneaky pro McCain angle to all this

I'll have to put on the tinfoil and think a bit more but this asswipe is up to no good.

You';ll recall he offered to pay a million bucks to anyone who could disavow the swift boat bullshit stories about Sen. Kerry. When Kerry did so and asked him for the mill the dildo reneged and refused to pay up.

I can guarantee you that whatever he has in his little brain it will not benefit you or me and will most likely result in Mr Pickens making a lot of money. And it won't benefit Obama or the Democratic party either.

P.S. I'm guessing he has the rights to several bazillion cubic miles of natural gas that he can sell to tide us over until all this green energy comes on line.

[TahitiNut]

5. He's building the world's largest wind farm in Texas.

http://www.kvii.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=38035

[Hamlette]

8. ahhhhh

makes sense now

[Dukkha]

6. a plot to swiftboat wind

"the wind does not cry Mary, I was there!"

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. The site

http://www.pickensplan.com/

[jobycom]

10. He claims he's 80 and a multi-billionaire who isn't worried about money anymore.

I tend to believe him. He's always been a bit of a loose cannon politically. He made some comments critical of Bush Daddy during the first Gulf War, and he's been talking about peak oil for a while now, and trying to find alternative forms of energy. I think he's just an old rich man who sees a way to make the world better in the final stage of his life.

He does have a lot of interests in wind power, of course. But as he says, he's worth $4 billion, he doesn't need more. And even if it is about money, I've got no real problem with the idea of replacing a third of our oil consumption with wind power in ten years.

How are the commercials, btw? Anything bad about them? Does he mention the Iraq War?

[Mojorabbit]

13. The commercials are good

but he wants to use natural gas as part of his plan along with wind. Natural gas will soon be in short supply from what I read. But if he wants to build a huge wind farm, I say more power to him. I am for any start in greening up this country. When I was in Germany two years ago, wind farms were all over the place. We are so far behind.

[jobycom]

15. I'm not clear on why natural gas is better. Is it more efficient?

It seems like it would be, since it would take less refining, but I don't know.

There are windmills all out the interstates in west Texas. I don't know how much a windmill generates, and wouldn't understand the numbers if I saw them, but someone has been building a ton of windmills.

[Democrats_win]

11. Seems like old times: another f*ck head texas oilprick trying to sell us a bill of "goods."

Prior to the 1980 election rich oilman Eddie Chiles was running radio commercials saying how mad he was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chiles

Then there was Crazy and Rich Ross Perot in 1992. Not really an oilman, but still a prick.

2000/4 had the grandaddy of oilpricks bush/cheney to f*ck up America.

Now T Bonehead Prick. He's a buddy of bush*t. He should apologize for supporting bush then, give us his "plan." Instead, he told Katie Couric that he will vote for McSame.

The oilpricks will keep us addicted to oil. 30 years of government-funded research in oil shale and the oil companies haven't produced a single drop from Colorado oil shale. Estonia has been producing oil from shale for 100 years.

[screembloodymurder]

14. I'm getting tired of the cynics here at DU.

Yes, he's in business to make money. So what? At least he's started a dialog about a problem we must face. For that, I give him credit. I hope our candidate has an even better plan. One that inspires all Americans to work toward a common goal for the good of our country. Or would you rather leave it up to our military?

[stillcool]

12. buy my product?

sounds like he's a player, getting out in front..looking for some return on his investment.

[Me.]

16. Trying To Make Money

to pay the vets who put together the proof that he was wrong about Kerry and theat the swiftboaters he hired were so as well. So far he's been skint about paying up.

[spag68]

19. You have the wrong oilman

It was not Pickens who funded the swift boat vets. Pickens spent the morning on CNBC explaining his stance on energy. He is indeed building the biggest wind farm in the US. Tell me what is wrong with that even if he makes money doing it. Nat gas is way cleaner then gasoline and the supply here in the US is more then enough to get us through to better renewables. He also endorsed solar and sensible biofuels, not corn. He is investing at least 10 million just in the commercials. He admits that he is a republican,but will not endorse McSame. My only problem with centrally located energy sources is that we then have to transmit it, and pay for it . Every roof top should have some form of solar panels, PV or thermal to reduce individual energy bills. The govt. should subsidies this just like they subsidies all the other forms of energy.

[PM7nj]

21. "Vets want their $1M by disproving T. Boone Pickens' claims about Kerry"

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/DN-swiftboat_21pol.ART.State.Edition2.4deb74e.html

"Ten men who served in Vietnam with Sen. John Kerry want Dallas billionaire T. Boone Pickens to fork over the $1 million he said he would give anyone who could disprove claims that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made about Mr. Kerry's war record during the 2004 presidential campaign."

[alfredo]

17. Is he green washing his name? I'm hoping he is sincere.

Maybe he doesn't want to go down in history as a corporate villain.

Gore does speak of the opportunities in new tech. Maybe Pickens can prove Gore's point.

If Pickens can lead on this, I will feel a bit better about him.

[spin]

18. We need somebody to do something...

The people we elect appear to spend a lot of time generating hot air and contributing to global warming and we still lack a coherent energy policy for the future.

If a few more companies or individuals like T Boone Pickens step forward and actually accomplish something, we might break the control of Big Oil and actually see alternative energy make a real contribution to energy independence for the United States.

Maybe we really don't need politicians to solve our energy problems. Maybe we can do it ourselves.

Google is working on green technology too:

"Lots of groups are doing great work trying to produce inexpensive renewable energy. We want to add something that moves these efforts toward even cheaper technologies a bit more quickly. Usual investment criteria may not deliver the super low-cost, clean, renewable energy soon enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change," said Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org, Google's philanthropic arm, "Google.org's hope is that by funding research on promising technologies, investing in promising new companies, and doing a lot of R&D ourselves, we may help spark a green electricity revolution that will deliver breakthrough technologies priced lower than coal." http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/20071127_green.htm

[XOKCowboy]

22. Saw this on DailyKos

The Pickens Plan, however, is based on the utterly impractical idea that "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."

Uhh, never gonna happen, T. Boone. Never. The most obvious reason is the gross inefficiency of the entire plan.

Right now, "We currently use natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity." Most of that electricity comes from gas burned in combined cycle gas turbines at an overall efficiency of up to 60%. Why in the world would the federal government — or anyone else — spend billions and billion of dollars on natural gas fueling stations and natural gas vehicles in order to burn the gas with an efficiency of 15% to 20%? Natural gas is simply too useful and expensive to squander in such a fashion.</div>