While I too have serious reservations about many aspects of his plan -- like right-of-way and environment impact of those high-voltage DC 'corridors' (here's a real NIMBY issue, if ever there was one) -- I do applaud the fact that he's making a lot a people aware of the fact that we can't drill our way out of this problem; and this is coming from a 'oil man.' He is also saying we need solar -- as well as nuclear -- but wind is the fastest way to start addressing the problem, and he's right.

To get a sense of the regard with which the 1,500 or so people who turned out in Lincoln held him, they gave him a standing ovation when he walked into the hall.

Posted by: Bill Moore

Yes it's expensive. But if we do nothing, our problems with climate change and national security will just keep getting worse. I'd rather do something, even if it's not perfect. Pointing out the flaws in someone else's plan and being 100 percent negative never solves anything.
Posted by: mr wodicka

And Pickens NG plan is also just plain stupid. The US has only enough NG reserves to fuel the Transportation sector for 7.1 years, and that would cut off 22% of US electricity fuel and about half of the US home/commercial/industrial heat energy. Curious how Gore & Pickens don’t mention electric vehicles. Curious how Shell Oil, Chevron, Pickens, and British Petroleum have swamped magazines and websites with expensive advertisements touting Biofuels, Hydrogen, Wind Energy and Solar Energy – nothing on the only REAL SOLUTIONS, namely Nuclear Power, Electricification of Transport and Methanol/DME burned in extreme efficiency engines. Can’t you guys see that this is just another scam, a red herring, to misdirect resources and funding from REAL SOLUTIONS? Haven’t you learned anything from how the Oil Interests managed to kill the California Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, by claiming H2 Fool Cell vehicles – were just around the corner – 8 yrs ago and they’re still saying the same thing today? So after informed bloggers have blown the H2 scam out of the water, as utter nonsense, Fossil Fuel Interests turned to the Biofuels Scam – predominately Corn Ethanol, and we’re all paying dearly for that monstrous child-killing scheme. Now that the Hideous Effects of that Evil Scheme have become apparent, they have tried the Clean Coal scam – which is also getting exposed – after the dismal failure of the billion dollar FutureGen fantasy Clean Coal Power Plant. And now they are turning to their best scam of all, Mega-Wind, Mega-Solar. Has nothing whatsoever to do with our dependence on Oil from unstable regions or the Peak Oil problem, or the loss of jobs and foreign exchange issue – but the gullible public are lining up behind that wacky plan.

First you have Pickens with his Wind/NG NON-SOLUTION, then within a week Gore with his even stupider version of the Wind Scam, and then European Governments touting the absolutely nutty North African Desert Mega-Solar scheme. Don’t you folks realize that the desert is like the Sea, the sand moves constantly, there are dust storms that cover the entirety of North Africa? The entire region is close to embracing Taliban like Islamic Dictatorships. Haven’t you seen the news on bombings and riots in Algeria, which almost went Taliban until the Military cancelled elections. Bad enough European countries, especially Germany, sold their soul for Russian Energy, now they are finding out just what a deal-with-the-devil entails. Germany can have the Taliban flip the light switch in Algeria to shut off most of their Electricity and the newly aggressive Russians, flush with success from their invasion of the Democratic Country of Georgia, will turn the taps off on their NG and Oil anytime they want to make them squirm. Europe is financing Russia’s military expansion, while Russia could care less about Wind and Solar, but instead is building Nuclear Power Plants by the hundreds, while keeping its Oil and NG for sale to the Patsies in Europe ( not including the sensible French)

Dr. Robert Hirsh tells of the IMPENDING and “FRIGHTENING” Peak Oil Crisis

Dr. Robert Hirsh interview on MP3

Posted by: Warren Heath

You seem to be missing the point. Pickens wants to stop our dependence on foreign oil, period. Foreign oil is used for transportation, not energy.

You seem to be obsessed with nuclear however you have no solution to the waste problem. There is already a backlog of high-level waste, accumulated for the last sixty years, and now distributed around the world in cooling ponds, in deterioraing contaniners, in decommissioned reactors and heaps of radioactive mill tailings. Some 1/4 million tons of spent fuel is already being stored in ponds, where the temporary canisters are so densely packed that they have to be separrated by boron panels to prevent chain reations. The task of clearing up this lethal detritus will require a great deal of energy. Energy equivalent to about one third of the total quantity of nuclear power produced-in the past and in the future- will be required to clear up past and future wastes.

There are only three breeder reactors in the world. Two are not working and the one that is running has never been able to produce fuel.

Unlike wind turbines, nuclear power plants start to lose their full power producing capacity after 24 years and have to be decommisioned in about 60 years. The decommissioning costs as much if not more than the plant itself and also requires a huge amount of fossil fuel energy.

There are several renewable energy sources at our disposal besides wind. Geothermal, Concentrated Solar Thermal, Wave, Solar Photovoltaic. The last one is not now efficient but nanotechnology will change that.
Posted by: John Boyd

‘…Pickens wants to stop our dependence on foreign oil, period. Foreign oil is used for transportation, not energy …’

1) Mega-Wind energy – now just how does that get us off of Foreign Oil, I’ve seen or heard nothing in Pickens plan about the urgent need to develop Battery Technology and expand production a thousand fold, and to Electrify our Transportation sector as fast & as much as possible. Indeed Pickens Plan will steal massive amounts of precious resources, capital and skilled labour away from BEV’s and HEV’s, case-in-point being the Rare Earth Magnets, which are in short supply, which will be needed in large quantities for EV, HEV & E-Bike motors are now being used in Wind Turbine Generators. He also seems to be onboard the H2 scam – a curious fact. And Picken’s Wind Turbines Special will use huge amounts of steel, copper, aluminum, fiberglass & concrete all which will require large IMPORTS of Foreign Oil.

2) NG fuel for the transport sector. Problem with that it would also take major resource allocations to complete, and then we would be stuck with a load of vehicles which burn NG but have no fuel. I pointed out earlier that the USA’s NG reserves are only enough to fuel the Transportation sector for 7.1 years, that’s if you shut down all other uses for NG, including it being the best energy source to supply the needed backup power for Wind. A lose lose proposition.

‘…You seem to be obsessed with nuclear however you have no solution to the waste problem …’

The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor

As a matter of fact, if the average American got all of his electricity over his lifetime from current Nuclear Power Plants, his total share of waste would fit into one Coke can, compare that with your alternative Coal power – same person would produce 68.5 tons of solid radioactive waste!. Hey John, I’ll bury my Coke can under my trailer if you bury your 69 tons of coal waste at your home. The total volume of Nuclear Waste produced by the World’s Power reactors annually, would fill a football field to 1.5 metres depth. A triviality compared to radioactive, toxic Coal waste. Trivial compared to Toxic Solar PV waste. The very successful IFR (Integral Fast Reactor) was nearing completion until owned-by-NG Clinton killed it, for unsavory political reasons. It would have burned up the CLEAN nuclear waste (at least 1000 times cleaner than the Cleanest of all ‘’Clean Coal’’ technologies) from all LWR’s generating Green Electricity and Heat.

The Integral Fast Reactor

And similarly, the pseudo-greenies, killed funding for the supremely effective Deep Seabed burial of nuclear waste, a simple, cheap, insignificant energy cost solution to Worldwide Nuclear Waste from all countries. Another method, also blockaded by the pseudo-greenies, is Deep Oceanic Trench Subduction zones burial – the waste would be sucked into the Earth Mantle – mixed with all the radioactive elements already present there. Example the Mariana Trench – 6.8 miles deep, all waste gone forever! Also Salt Dome storage of waste is easy, cheap secure for millions of years – blocked by politicians intent on protecting the Yucca Mountain (designed by politicians) boondoggle.

Permanent, Cheap, Effective, Safe Disposal of Nuclear Waste in Deep Seabeds

‘…only three breeder reactors in the world. Two are not working and the one that is running has never been able to produce fuel …’

Fast Neutron Reactors - the Facts – no Hype

The Hyperion Nuclear Reactor, 50% fuel burn, $1000 per KWe, $350 per KWth

Status of Breeder Nuclear Reactors and Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing

CERN Accelerator Driven Fission Sub-critical Reactor Analysis

‘…nuclear power plants start to lose their full power producing capacity after 24 years and have to be decommisioned in about 60 years. The decommissioning costs as much if not more than the plant itself and also requires a huge amount of fossil fuel energy.…’

Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities

The Fuji Molten Salt Reactor and other Small and Modular Nuclear Reactors

‘…several renewable energy sources at our disposal besides wind. Geothermal, Concentrated Solar Thermal, Wave, Solar Photovoltaic. The last one is not now efficient but nanotechnology will change that.…’

A 100 MW net power fusion reactor could be built for $20 million

Various Nuclear Fusion approaches are certain to be successful within the next 50 years

My contention is that the ITER Nuclear Fusion Project was specifically designed to be suck up funds from much better fusion approaches and delay Nuclear Fusion success for as long as possible. ITER is a United Nations Boondoggle (a piddling $150 million per year from the US – about ten days corn ethanol funding). Rumor is that a major part of ITER’s budget goes to expensive, lavish seminars in exotic locations. An effort modeled after the International Space Station fiasco. For the cost of the useless International Space Station we could have a permanent colony on the Moon, right now. The ITER mega-international-bureaucracy spent 5 years arguing about where to even build the facility. If the X-Prize for private spacecraft, used the ITER / Space Station scheme, it would have cost at least $10 billion to get a successful launch rather than the $10 million that ultimately went to Burt Ruttan’s company.

Posted by: Warren Heath

I disagree. Rememeber the first PCs. You had to be rich to afford one. Now it is within reach of anyone that can afford a TV which were also expensive when they first hit the market.

Although I did not like Pickens treatment of Kerry, I really think he is concerned about this countries welfare. He could have demanded we drill in ANWR and do more offshore drilling but he knows the facts about these pipe dreams.
Posted by: John Boyd

warren's logic makes me uncomfortable.  however i agree that it is odd to hear so little about electric vehicles.  i'm driving electric right now and i've been converted completely!  how could these 90% efficient vehicles not be part of the solution.  and i say PART of the solution because i acknowledge that there needs to be MANY solutions and we shan't demonize or idealize any one solution, like i read in comments all.. the ...freakin... time...

Posted by: Keith Tomilson

Thorium is a metal found in most rocks and soils, and there are some rich ores bearing as much as 10 percent thorium oxide. The relevant isotope is the slightly radioactive thorium-232. It has a half-life three times that of the earth, so that makes it useless as a direct source of energy, but it can be used as the starting-point from which to breed an efficient nuclear fuel. Here’s how: ? Start by irradiating the thorium-232, using a start-up fuel – plutonium-239 will do. Thorium-232 is slightly fertile, and absorbs a neutron to become thorium 233. ? The thorium-233, with a half-life of 22.2 minutes, decays to protactinium-233. ? The protactinium-233, with a half-life of 27 days, decays into uranium-233. ? The uranium-233 is highly fissile, and can be used not just as nuclear fuel, but as the start-up source of irradiation for a blanket of thorium-232, to keep the whole cycle going indefinitely. But, as is so often the case with nuclear power, it is not as good as it looks. The two-step sequence of plutonium breeding is, as we have seen, hard enough. The four-step sequence of thoriumbreeding is worse. The uranium-233 which you get at the end of the process is contaminated with uranium-232 and with highlyradioactive thorium-228, both of which are neutron-emitters, reducing its effectiveness as a fuel; it also has the disadvantage that it can be used in nuclear weapons. The comparatively long half-life of protactinium-233 (27 days) makes for problems in the reactor, since substantial quantities linger on for up to a year. Some reactors – including Kakrapar-1 and -2 in India – have both achieved full power using some thorium in their operation, and it may well be that, if there is to be a very long-term future for nuclear fission, it will be thorium that drives it along. However, the full thorium breeding cycle, working on a scale which is largeenough and reliable-enough to be commercial, is a long way away. For the foreseeable future, its contribution will be tiny. This is because the cycle needs some source of neutrons to begin. Plutonium could provide this but (a) there isn’t very much of it around; (b) what there is (especially if we are going to do what Lovelock urges) is going to be busy as the fuel for once-through reactors and/or or fast-breeder reactors, as explained above; and (c) it is advisable, wherever there is an alternative, to keep plutonium-239 and uranium-233 – an unpredictable and potentially incredibly dangerous mixture – as separate as possible. It follows that thorium reactors must breed their own start-up fuel from uranium-233. The problem here is that there is practically no uranum-233 anywhere in the world,and the only way to get it is to start with (say) plutonium-239 to get one reactor going. At the end of forty years, it will have bred enough uranium-233 both to get another reactor going, and to replace the fuel in the original reactor. So, as in the case of fastbreeders, we have an estimated 30 years before we can perfect the process enough to get it going on a commercial scale, followed by 40 years of breeding. Result: in 2075, we could have just two thorium reactors up and running.
Posted by: John Boyd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOczaEzzxaM&feature=related

Posted by: Keith Tomilson

June 18,2008

Arctic sea ice melt 'even faster' : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7461707.stm

"Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter.

Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007.

But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss.

Scientists on the project say much of the ice is so thin as to melt easily, and the Arctic seas may be ice-free in summer within five to 10 years."

It may not bother you or the politicians but this has me scared.
Posted by: John Boyd

http://news.yahoo.com/story/ap/20080827/ap_on_sc/sci_arctic_ice;_ylt=AqJwA3K2wEFTqNVp5V8qeIas0NUE

More ominous signs Wednesday have scientists saying that a global warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at its second lowest level in about 30 years.

Overall, the picture of what's happening in the Arctic is getting worse, said Bob Corell, who headed a multinational scientific assessment of Arctic conditions a few years ago: "We're moving beyond a point of no return."
Posted by: John Boyd