AlterNet: Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme

[marmar]

Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted August 21, 2008.

The controversial oil magnate has made headlines for a supposed conversion to cleaner energy, but there's ample reason to be suspicious.




"If you are going out of business, you don't go down with the ship, you get another ship. For us, it's natural gas." -- T. Boone Pickens, "Becoming a Billionaire"

You can't always get what you want, the Rolling Stones counseled. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Factor billions of dollars, questionable loyalties and a privatization rap sheet invested more in profit than people into the equation, and you usually can get both what you want and what you need. In the case of hyper-loaded oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, that means having your cake on climate crisis, fossil fuel addiction, eminent domain, water privatization and corporate earnings -- and eating it too.

In July, the oil magnate unveiled a well-publicized campaign, the Pickens Plan, which begins with an obvious premise: "America is addicted to foreign oil." Pickens' proposal to kick the habit is straightforward and simple: "Building new wind-generation facilities and better utilizing our natural gas resources can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports in 10 years."

Sounds fair enough, especially given that Pickens and climate-crisis herald Al Gore have melded minds on the issue. But not hard enough, which is where the cracks in the Pickens Plan begin. "(Gore) asked if we could we join together and do something," Pickens explained to Bloomberg News. "I told him no, because global warming is on page two for me. Page one is foreign oil.''

That page seems to be recently written. As previously noted on either side of the red-blue divide, Pickens has funneled millions into 527s like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, helping derail John Kerry's bid for the White House in 2004. He simultaneously committed hundreds of thousands on top of that to the election and inauguration of both Bush administrations, both spearheaded by fossil fools whose kinship with foreign oil producers not only launched an invasion into an oil-rich but nevertheless sovereign nation, but also nearly tripled the price of oil in seven years and handed campaign contributors like Exxon the most bloated earnings in corporate history.

Sure, Pickens eventually decided to stop funding political campaigns, but that deathbed conversion happened the same July that the Pickens Plan ramped up its nearly $60 million media blitz. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/environment/95471/why_t._boone_pickens%27_%27clean_energy%27_plan_is_a_ponzi_scheme/

[Hugabear]

1. He is a prime reason why energy should be nationalized

We shouldn't allow greedy fatcats like this to rake in huge profit$$$ by exploiting natural resources. Nobody owns the wind - but this man wants to sell it to you.

[phantom power]

2. He's not selling you wind. He wants to sell you electricity.

[Hugabear]

3. Which comes from what?

Wind. Wind is a natural, renewable resource. Sorry, but I don't agree that corporations should be making profit$ from natural resources, providing an essential service.

[GliderGuider]

5. How should the services (goods, actually) be provided, then?

I'm not speaking in favour of an unregulated free market here, but think about the number of products that would fall in the same category as electricity produced from a Global Commons (the air):

Fish
Lumber
Oil, gas, coal
Metals
Concrete
etc.

In some of those cases the raw materials are extracted from land that's "owned" by someone (a convenient cultural artifact, that) but they are still part of the common heritage of life on this planet. How do we distribute the end product without profit? I'm as anti-corporate as the next anarcho-primitivist, but I can't think of any other mechanism that has worked any better.

[phantom power]

6. Nationalized utilities are certainly one possible agenda.

I guess what I'm saying is, observing that "the wind is free" doesn't get very far. The hardware to turn it into useful energy isn't free. It comes with economic and environmental costs.

If I get your drift, you don't like the idea of somebody making a profit off of producing electricity, because it has become part of our critical infrastructure.

[Hugabear]

7. I don't mean that it should be given away for free

Of course there are costs involved in producing the electricity. But these Big Energy types are raking in BILLION$.

[Joanne98]

4. Here's the main point. BP Capital , a secretive hedge fund, is heavily

invested in natural gas.

Those are the shells being moved around in this particular game. But shuffling responsibilities and resources will do nothing to forestall our dystopian environmental future, unless those resources burn clean. And what the Pickens Plan does not mention is that the oil tycoon has been deeply invested in natural gas for decades. If the entire American fleet were to switch over to natural gas, the air would possibly (but not probably) be around 30 percent cleaner in a decade, but Pickens would be richer in much higher percentages. And while the air would only stay cleaner for a short while, Pickens would stay loaded beyond the grave.

[kristopher]

8. Just because Pickens proposes natural gas for cars doesn't mean it will happen

In fact, it almost assuredly won't happen, but Pickens will still make a lot off the natural gas rights he might own.

The natural gas can much more effectively be used to augment the electric system for battery cars and with the national wind network Pickens proposes (along with the deployment of solar, geothermal and wave/current/tidal that Gore proposes), we would be able to reduce petroleum consumption 75% and virtually eliminate the use of coal.

If Pickens makes a bundle helping to bring this about I say not only good for him, but we should even celebrate his birthday as an effin holiday.

[Triana]

9. K & R n/t

[Dover]

10. The biggest problem with self-serving opportunists like Pickens is

they have no central guidance or grounding in their own humanity. They're like hollow sheets, blowing whichever way the wind blows, regardless of its consequences to others, to the environment,
to anything which doesn't 'serve' them.

In fact this is their definition of 'freedom'.


It's an insidious disease that pervades much of our 'corporate culture'.
This is the model that needs to change.

[wtmusic]

11. "Of course I'll always be voting Republican."

Response when challenged on CNBC about the nonpartisanship of the plan (your description sounds like the GOP manifesto in a nutshell).