Memo to T. Boone Pickens

His energy plan is half brilliant, half dumb

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 9:35 PM on 08 Jul 2008

Read more about: wind power | energy | natural gas | climate | cars

The Phone Call
based on a true story

Major cable network: What do you think of T. Boone Pickens' latest energy plan?

Me: Half of it is great -- the big push on wind power. Heck, even the Bush administration says wind power could be 20 percent of U.S. electricity. But the notion that we would use the wind power to free up natural gas in order to fuel a transition to natural gas vehicles makes no sense. Why would we go to the trouble of switching our vehicle fleet from running on one expensive fossil fuel to another expensive fossil fuel? Any freed up natural gas should be used to displace coal ...

Major cable network: I was hoping you liked the whole plan. That way we could use you on the show ... You don't have any ideas of who might like the whole thing?

Me [Long pause, crickets chirp, the wind sighs, sea levels rise a few meters]: No. The people who will like the renewables part probably won't be thrilled about the fossil fuel part, and vice versa.

Major cable network: Thanks. I'm sure we will find some reason to use you soon.

I am thinking about working that into a screenplay about a mild-mannered blogger for a great metropolitan progressive think tank who sacrifices his chance to be on television because he refuses to endorse an inane idea. I was looking at Matt Damon to play me, especially now that he has put on a little weight.

Seriously, though, it's great that gazillionaire TBP is talking up peak oil and joining the wind power bandwagon. And it's great he plans to spend tens of millions of dollars pushing this idea and delivering the mesage that $15 billion for the wind production tax credit is peanuts compared to the $700 billion this country is going to spend on foreign oil this year.

But if you want to displace oil, the obvious thing to do is use of the wind power to charge plug-in hybrids, multiple models of which will be introduced into the U.S. car market in two years. Indeed, with electric utilities controlling the charging of the plug-ins, they can make optimum use of variable wind power, which is mostly available at night. That would be a win-win-win.

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."

Uh, 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 percent of our electricity." Most of that electricity comes from gas burned in combined cycle gas turbines at an overall efficiency of up to 60 percent. Why in the world would the federal government -- or anyone else -- spend billions and billions of dollars on natural gas fueling stations and natural gas vehicles in order to burn the gas with an efficiency of 15 percent to 20 percent? Natural gas is simply too useful and expensive to squander in such a fashion.

And then there's global warming.

It now seems clear this country will have a major effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and a price for carbon dioxide within a few years. That means all federal and private sector energy-related investments will increasingly be driven by the need to achieve reductions in carbon dioxide emissions at the lowest price.

Running cars on natural gas does not significantly reduce GHG emissions (especially if there is even the tiniest leak in the whole gas delivery process). Running a car on electricity from the U.S. electric grid does reduce GHG emissions. And running a car on electricity from combined cycle gas turbines would have a far lower GHG emissions than running the car directly on natural gas -- internal combustion engines are simply too damn inefficient. Of course, running a car on the wind power would eliminate vehicle admissions completely. Or using the wind power to displace coal plants would eliminate the emissions from those plants entirely.

So again, neither the federal government nor anyone else is going to spend billions and billions of dollars on natural gas fueling stations and natural gas vehicles.

A 2002 analysis ($ub. req'd) of why natural gas vehicles (NGVs) didn't catch on was published in Energy Policy. The study concluded that the environmental benefits of NGVs were oversold, as were the early cost estimates for both the vehicles and the refueling stations: "Early promoters often believe that 'prices just have to drop' and cited what turned out to be unachievable price levels." The study concluded, "Exaggerated claims have damaged the credibility of alternate transportation fuels, and have retarded acceptance, especially by large commercial purchasers."

So a large-scale switch to NGVs by consumers is not going to happen no matter what T. Boone does. But he could help accelerate wind power into the marketplace, and for that alone, he deserves some kudos.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

For story: Memo to T. Boone Pickens
20 Comments | Post a Comment

Perhaps...

One of those folks who have already received their Tesla should drop by T. Boone's office and give him a test ride.

Nothing like a little first hand experience to broaden ones thinking....

by Bob Wallace at 10:13 PM on 08 Jul 2008

And of course

natural gas is liable to reach its own peak and decline in the not too distant future. Allowing new wind production to retire the coal fleet is clearly the way to go.

Good for T. Boone though that he's moving in the right direction even at this late stage: his considerable fortune and influence will give this particular ball a lot of momentum.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 6:05 AM on 09 Jul 2008

in an alternate universe, maybe

if the infrastructure for natural gas fueling of automobiles were already in place, it would be wonderful. in the short term, of course. As it is, however, revamping the entire vehicular fueling infrastructure to supply natural gas to a vehicle fleet which will take a decade or more to turn over and eliminate all the gasoline fueled automobiles but will become obsolete pretty soon after doesn't seem the brightest idea to me, although i have nothing but respect for pickens.

by gzuckier at 7:26 AM on 09 Jul 2008

asdf

Pickens isn't building a wind farm as a charitable act. He sees profit in it. And that's a good thing.

Pickens says that he hasn't gone green. He sees an opportunity to make more green.

That Pickens is the person putting up the money is an indication that wind has penetrated the 'far right'. Remember that this is the guy who financed the Swift Boat group and was largely responsible for giving us a second Bush term.

If wind has reached the point where potential profits outweigh political viewpoints then we're well on our way toward replacing fossil fuels for electricity generation.

by Bob Wallace at 8:16 AM on 09 Jul 2008

Hehey

Most natural gas is used for heating. Ever hear about ground source heat pumps (running on intermittent wind and solar, storing heat/cold in building mass)?

Combined cycle? Really? I thought most natural gas power generation was done with old inefficient ICEs and turbines. Combined cycle is maybe 20%?

Wouldn't it be a good idea to power long haul trucks, tractors, and trains with natural gas to stabilize oil prices by reducing demand? These will be the last vehicles to be converted to renewable electricity.

I wonder how people will buy plugin hybrids (that aren't available in the US) without jobs? A technology that is hardly ever discussed in mass delusional media, much less mass produced by gas guzzling auto companies.

Will gas be 8 bucks per gallon when the first mass produced plugin hybrids come out, for 40k?

Talking to the wall here? Yep.

Oh yeah, might as well add more useless information. Coal can be converted to natural gas underground with natural bacteria.

Thise plugin hybrids will need fuel ocasionally too. Why not use natural gas?

And the last, best point. Biogas from the waste stream, that offsets GHG, could substitute for natural gas. If 5% of the natural gas we use comes from biogas, we could offset the rest of the CO2 coming from the natural gas.

And since we already know that solar on roofs could replace coal, and wind could supply 40% of the demand lowered by conservation. Along with biogas and natural gas that all would pretty much cover our energy needs without a carbon footprint and with a 100s of year supply of natural gas as an ultimate backup.

As batteries get better less and less natural gas would be needed. Meanwhile we bid farewell to oil and oil wars.

Natural gas is impoertant as a backup for renewables necause we might experience a year or two without summer at anytime, no solar to speak of then and wind will need help.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 8:18 AM on 09 Jul 2008

They should of called

Me, hehey.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 8:22 AM on 09 Jul 2008

Big Energy Monopolists

don't care if it's wind, oil or natural gas, because as long as it's BIG Energy, Pickens knows that he gets to socialize ALL his costs onto ratepayers and the environment, build out his monopolies on our land and our dime, then bottle and sell us our wind, and sadly, some people will thank him for it!!

this is insane. this fuel, and sun, are ubiquitous and local, point of use systems are the only way to create grid stability (see fires in CA causing endless power outages), reduce grid congestion (eliminating the need for the hundreds of thousands of miles of new massive powerlines these guys are also building on our land - including taking our homes - and our dime), and offer a chance to break up the Big Energy monopolies which have poisoned our planet and are bankrupting us.

please, please, let the voice of the PEOPLE be heard for once! we want a level playing field, and right now, the system is so ridiculously gamed against us (and i live in CA, which masquerades as a "progressive" state!), we really need people to start advocating for the RIGHT kind of renewables - those which do not kill off huge swathes of wilderness, require massive new transmission, and re-entrench Big Energy monopolies when we are finally poised to break free...

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

by stopgreenpath at 9:10 AM on 09 Jul 2008

Oil Free?

In what way is this plan oil free? Grist should revise the headline of this daily grist story.

-MN *Promote US passenger rail service. Resources and time are limited.*

by worldischanging at 10:18 AM on 09 Jul 2008

amazingdrx has it about right.

The NG for vehicles proposal is quicker than waiting for plugins. Although I think Pickens was including it because the current attention is largely about oil. A single generation of NG vehicles doesn't sound that unreasonable to me. It roughly matches the time period during which our NG supply should hold up. It buys time for the plugins to make it into the market (probably 5-10 years before significant volumes are available). And compressed NG makes a lot more sense thermodynamically than the gas to liquid fuel boondoggles that are being proposed.

Our problem is that peakoil is coming on pretty quick. The number of industry people predicting 2010 for the peak has been growing. Public panic over this could easily result in some very bad policies being rushed through. This plan might deflect some of that pressure.

by bigTom at 3:55 PM on 09 Jul 2008

why I like this

Switching vehicles to run on gaseous fuels would at least open the door to hydrogen or Synfuel run engines just like building FutureGen plants opens the door for large scale hydrogen fired electric plants. Once the technology is in place the remaining job is to find better ways to produce hydrogen fuel.

Mike Johnston

by enki at 11:57 PM on 09 Jul 2008

well, the visuals count too

The T. Boone Pickens ad shows many seconds of happy wind turbines, and a number of solar panels. That ought to be enough to nudge some people to start thinking new good thoughts about renewables, no matter what the voice-over may be saying about natural gas.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:36 AM on 10 Jul 2008

Sorry Joe

Sounds like it was a "don't let the perfect be enemy of the good" moment.

The Honda Civic GX (natural gas) routinely wins awards for the cleanest, greenest, car in production ...

It very sad to me that, in practice, enviros like to burn dirtier fuels until revolution comes ... because they may still be waiting in 20 or 30 years.

A nat-gas fleet would be a good, incremental, improvement over the status quo. (Need I mention that "perfect" cars beyond the good nat-gas ones are still promises and not in production?)

by odograph at 7:00 AM on 10 Jul 2008

Must admit, Odo

a natural gas car fueled from my own compressor in my garage sounds mighty appealing. Although, given that natural gas is a limited resource, displacing coal with it might be a more efficient use as far as CO2 is concerned.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:30 AM on 10 Jul 2008

Cost Effective Community Owned Green Power

http://www.epa.gov/grnpower/toplists/communities.htm#list ...

The next generation will see effective green change as they...

Run for Mayor. Get Elected via Clean Elections

http://www.publicampaign.org/

based on a platform of Community owned cost effective green power.

Solar, Wind, BioGas.

Ecosystems empowerment for the rural poor.

by 1Eco at 11:13 AM on 10 Jul 2008

The problem with natural gas...

OK, I see two problems:

The cost right now is very high (about $12, it's basically doubled over the past year - just like oil). More demand = higher prices. And transporting gas is not nearly as easy as shipping oil, so supply issues would be problematic. Thus, you have the same cost problems with oil or worse. Note that increased demand for gas will raise electricity prices, home heating costs, industry costs (they use a lot of nat gas). The issues with gas production are similar to oil production - it's getting harder to find and get out of the ground. I think a shift to gas creates a whole new set of big problems.
There are decent alternatives to natural gas cars now. Hybrids, plug-ins, mass transit - all are better alternatives. I think it highly unlikely that there will be a massive investment in natural gas supply infrastructure for cars/trucks/etc only to have that become useless in 15 years - which it surely will. No one will be willing to make that investment, because I don't think anyone should.

I think Joe is right on target with this one.

by Capster at 12:23 PM on 12 Jul 2008

There's also the fact...

...that the power lines leadin' from the wind farm to Dallas, Pickens also intends to use their right-of-way for a water pipeline to try and transport water from the dwindling aqufers of the South Plains by the billions of gallons.

...Still, better he invest it this way than in traditional oil extraction...or worse, decide to endorse coal.

by Tasermons Partner at 7:02 PM on 12 Jul 2008

Pickens plan is mostly wrong

Only part I like is the part everyone else hates; using NG (or renewable methane) for powering vehicles. Even PHEVs need some fuel of some sort. But ditch the windmills (except maybe to charge PHEVs with their intermittent electricity) and build more nuclear power plants.

If we free up NG used in electricity production, then we'd have quite a bit for other uses, including vehicles.

Joe Romm is mis-guided (though technically correct) in simply stating NG use in vehicles is less efficient than using it in a combined-cycle plant. Its value isn't in its efficiency, but its value as a storable (reasonably compact) fuel.

(Leave in a tiny gas tank so the vehicle can interface with the current infrastructure too.)

What is left out of the conversation is the ability to produce renewable methane from biomass; far more efficiently and easily than it is to produce ethanol. This means all our cars could run from 100% renewable sources; electricity from wind and methane from biomass; and at prices that are affordable TODAY with CURRENT technology.

Build plugin hybrids that run on renewable methane. That's all that's needed.

by jimbeyer at 9:21 AM on 15 Jul 2008

Think about it though...

Pickens wants to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum by supplanting it with domestically produced fuels. His plan offers natural gas as the likely candidate and I totally agree that it is the most readily available fuel source with a distribution network already in place.

In addition, we could produce natural gas from coal and water and this would essentially give us hydrogen from water fuel which is stored on carbon atoms (oh wait that is what hydrocarbons are anyway).

Also, by switching to gaseous fuel systems we could have the technology in place to go to straight hydrogen fuel in the future and for these reasons I am totally supporting the Pickens Plan.

Mike Johnston

by enki at 11:59 PM on 23 Jul 2008

Heavy Transport and some other comments..

I would like to point out that the Pickens Plan is aimed mostly at our heavy transport services and fleet vehicles. There isn't much mention of this on this pickensplan.org site, but T. Boone specifically stated that in several TV interviews I've seen in the past few weeks (Lou Dobbs' interview on 7/21 http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/21/pickens.interview/index. ...). The focus on these vehicles defers the need for expensive NG infrastructure to be built ubiquitously across the nation.

I DO, however, agree that combustion engines are terribly inefficient, and that I am not convinced that losing efficiency in the transition from power generation to transport will be good in the long run.

One other point that worries me regards wind power generation and transmission of that electricity. I am all for wind and solar power. But, the major population centers (where power is consumed) are very long distances from the regions where high winds and sunlight are plentiful. The national electric grid does span this area, but it cannot yet support transporting the many thousands of megawatts that would be necessary to offset energy production carried out by natrual gas turbines. This is, in large part, because the electrical infrastructure in this country has been maintained in its present state for a long time without significant major improvements. There is also attenuation of the current as it traverses such long distances, reducing efficiency.

All that said, I do agree with Pickens on several points:

a) the wealth moving overseas would end up in american's pockets instead. The biggest source of pressure on the trade deficit comes from oil. Natural Gas is plentiful and domestic. I have to disagree with one commenter, above: NG is incredibly available on this continent and it is cheap and easy to get it out of the ground. I do have to agree with another commenter: transporting NG is expensive.

b) rural communities and rural america would benefit from new opportunities to harvest wind and solar energy. I read one quote from a lady who runs a farm in Texas. She pointed to a huge windmill above her cow pasture and said, "Wind! It's just one more thing we harvest around here."

c) switching to NGVs and investing heavily in wind and solar buy us time that we need to see the really cool future technology come to bear: hydrogen, electric, insert-as-yet-unknown-tech-here.

I am still on the fence about the plan in genernal. I am, however, very interested in hearing more about it.

by petrasek at 12:46 PM on 26 Jul 2008

Top Ten List

Top Ten Ways T. Boone Pickens Could Better Spend His Ten Billion

Buy air time apologizing to the American public for funding Swift Boat...
Spend a lot of money convincing Texas to put bounties on politicians and underwrite them...
Pay off the bet he welshed on to the Vets' organization that documented the Swift Boat lies.
Take a university class from Al Gore...
Send me a modest one-tenth of one percent--a mere ten mill--to buy my silence; otherwise I'm e-mailing Letterman...
Loan Rush Limbaugh some money for a shrink, group therapy, and to finish his college education...
Take a year-long ocean cruise and invite Rupert Murdoch to accompany him...
Hire Scott Mclellan as his press secretary...
Two year's health care insurance for one mllion uninsured American workers...
A dinner date with Jane Fonda...

by concolor1 at 12:31 PM on 31 Jul 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.