The Pickens Plan
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by Titus Todd
I was surprised to recently see a TV advertisement featuring T. Boone Pickens and his plan. Having left Texas I did not believe Pickens would follow me to another state but there he was on the TV in living color. Of course, the first question that came to my mind was what is Pickens getting out of this? If Pickens has a plan, it is for himself to make more money no matter how he markets it. Who is getting the bad end of the stick while he has the good end?
I graduated from West Texas A & M University where I took classes from the T. Boone College of Business. T. Boone's name was dropped from the college in 2005 over questions of whether or not he completed his pledge of $1.5 million (the University's side of the story) or because T. Boone thought the college was not performing to his expectations (his side of the story). He basically was confronted with the issue and decided it was time for a name change for the college.
A former corporate raider, he shunned Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle for Dallas because the region was not willing to tote his line anymore. He was always about profits despite what he left in his wake. Of course, the Texas Panhandle couldn't get rid of him that easy, as he would show up again with a plan to sell water down state to San Antonio and/or the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex.
The water plan is still in the works and he has been paving the way to make it possible by his influence in the Texas legislature. He now has obtained the ability to get right-of-way to build a pipeline and, along with it, is looking at putting in transmission lines for his wind generated power. Pickens plan to pipe a limited resource, water from the Ogallala Aquifer, pays little regard to what future impact it may have on the farmers and communities of the Texas Panhandle.
At this point, let me touch on the new Pickens Plan that has brought him out west and onto my TV as well as that of many others. He wants to see the US increase the amount of power generated by wind energy to 22% of our power needs and convert the existing 20% or so of power generated through the use of natural gas to our transporation needs. What a green thing for an oilman to want to do, right? That's what he would like you to believe, and to believe he is doing this out of the best interest of the country, too. But, that is not who and what Pickens is about.
Pickens wants to put into place the largest wind farm to date in the Texas Panhandle near the town of Pampa through his company Mesa Power. His problem is that he needs the transmission lines to get that power to where it is needed. By getting support for his plan, he would most likely get the financial support to put in his transmission lines and thus be able to profit from his new wind farm. To top it off, Pickens has natural gas interests through his hedge fund, BP Capital, and would profit from a move to natural gas for transportation needs.
So, who has the most to gain from the Pickens Plan? T. Boone Pickens, of course.
Is it a good plan regardless of Pickens' profit motives? I don't think so. Wind energy is definitely a viable and growing source of energy. There is still much room for it to grow. Where Pickens plan falls apart is in converting some of our transportation energy needs to natural gas. Pickens intends for it to be a transitional fuel as we convert over to more hybrids and to electric vehicles. His plan does not seem to take into account the infrastructure costs and time involved in getting more natural gas fueling stations. He also needs the support of automobile manufacturers for such a conversion and those behemouths take a long time to turn. A conversion to more natural gas fueled vehicles is in no way going to happen soon so why waste the time in doing it when we could be closer to other modes of fueling our automobiles.
Hopefully, national legislators and the public will see what worth this Pickens Plan really is and not buy into it. It will be time, effort and money wasted if we sink any of it into a plan that does little for us in the near future and will mean little to us in the more distant future.
I graduated from West Texas A & M University where I took classes from the T. Boone College of Business. T. Boone's name was dropped from the college in 2005 over questions of whether or not he completed his pledge of $1.5 million (the University's side of the story) or because T. Boone thought the college was not performing to his expectations (his side of the story). He basically was confronted with the issue and decided it was time for a name change for the college.
A former corporate raider, he shunned Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle for Dallas because the region was not willing to tote his line anymore. He was always about profits despite what he left in his wake. Of course, the Texas Panhandle couldn't get rid of him that easy, as he would show up again with a plan to sell water down state to San Antonio and/or the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex.
The water plan is still in the works and he has been paving the way to make it possible by his influence in the Texas legislature. He now has obtained the ability to get right-of-way to build a pipeline and, along with it, is looking at putting in transmission lines for his wind generated power. Pickens plan to pipe a limited resource, water from the Ogallala Aquifer, pays little regard to what future impact it may have on the farmers and communities of the Texas Panhandle.
At this point, let me touch on the new Pickens Plan that has brought him out west and onto my TV as well as that of many others. He wants to see the US increase the amount of power generated by wind energy to 22% of our power needs and convert the existing 20% or so of power generated through the use of natural gas to our transporation needs. What a green thing for an oilman to want to do, right? That's what he would like you to believe, and to believe he is doing this out of the best interest of the country, too. But, that is not who and what Pickens is about.
Pickens wants to put into place the largest wind farm to date in the Texas Panhandle near the town of Pampa through his company Mesa Power. His problem is that he needs the transmission lines to get that power to where it is needed. By getting support for his plan, he would most likely get the financial support to put in his transmission lines and thus be able to profit from his new wind farm. To top it off, Pickens has natural gas interests through his hedge fund, BP Capital, and would profit from a move to natural gas for transportation needs.
So, who has the most to gain from the Pickens Plan? T. Boone Pickens, of course.
Is it a good plan regardless of Pickens' profit motives? I don't think so. Wind energy is definitely a viable and growing source of energy. There is still much room for it to grow. Where Pickens plan falls apart is in converting some of our transportation energy needs to natural gas. Pickens intends for it to be a transitional fuel as we convert over to more hybrids and to electric vehicles. His plan does not seem to take into account the infrastructure costs and time involved in getting more natural gas fueling stations. He also needs the support of automobile manufacturers for such a conversion and those behemouths take a long time to turn. A conversion to more natural gas fueled vehicles is in no way going to happen soon so why waste the time in doing it when we could be closer to other modes of fueling our automobiles.
Hopefully, national legislators and the public will see what worth this Pickens Plan really is and not buy into it. It will be time, effort and money wasted if we sink any of it into a plan that does little for us in the near future and will mean little to us in the more distant future.
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