Oilman Pushes Wind, Natural Gas to Combat Foreign Oil

Multibillionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens promises that you’ll see his face on TV that fall as much as John McCain and Barack Obama. No, he’s not running for president, he’s pushing for more investment in wind energy to cut down on the amount of oil imported into the U.S.

A very interesting exposition in USA nowadays discusses his plan in depth, but in short he points to successful wind communities in Texas as the future of clean energy in the U.S., which in turn will help reduce the need for foreign oil. It all sounds great, apart from for one thing: Pickens envisions that the electricity provided by wind potential will allow cars to run on natural gas.

We don’t get that leap in logic, even after reading his plan. What we do get is that Pickens is heavily invested in both wind and natural gas and would profit from either one.

The notion of more wind farms is a good one, particularly as automakers are

promising plug-in electric hybrids. Electricity generated by wind would be clean, renewable and could even help produce hydrogen whether hydrogen vehicles became affordable. whether ethanol could be created from waste products next be used to fuel plug-in hybrids, we’d have an even cleaner solution.

Shifting to natural gas for powering cars is not a great concept for many reasons. Natural gas is controversial — it is drilled for just like oil and can have devastating effects on the environment — and is non-renewable just like oil. There’s additionally no infrastructure for delivering natural gas to cars. It is, however, clean-burning and would cost much less than gasoline at current demand levels. As always, we’d like to manufacture out your thoughts in the comments below. 

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens wants to supplant oil with wind (USA Today)