Pickens Plan

Pickens Plan

Who is T. Boone Pickens?

Thomas Boone Pickens, Jr. (born May 22, 1928) is an American businessman who chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator during the 1980’s. With an estimated current net worth of about $3 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 177th richest person in America and ranked 369th in the world.

What is T. Boone Pickens core belief?

Boone Pickens believes the United States is addicted to foreign oil. It is an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people.”

What is the Pickens Plan?

On January 30, 2008, Pickens announced a major energy policy proposal, called the Pickens Plan. It is a collection of steps that together form a comprehensive approach to America’s energy needs. The main goal of the plan is to greatly reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil.

How will the Pickens Plan work?

There are four main features of the Pickens Plan:

1.  “Create millions of new jobs by building out the capacity to generate up to 22 percent of our electricity from wind. And adding to that with additional solar capacity. Building out wind capacity in the great Plains - from Northern Texas to the Canadian border - would produce 138,000 new jobs in the first year, and more than 3.4 million new jobs over a ten-year period, while also producing as much as 20 percent of our needed electricity.”

2.  “Building a 21st century backbone electrical grid to deliver power where it is needed, when it is needed, in the direction it is needed. It will be the modern equivalent of building the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950’s.”

3.  “Providing incentives for homeowners and the owners of commercial buildings to upgrade their insulation and other energy saving options. Studies show a significant upgrading of insulation would save the equivalent of one million barrels of oil per day in energy by cutting down on both air conditioning costs in warm weather and heating costs in winter.”

4.  “Using America’s natural gas (CNG) to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel.”

“The Pickens Plan is a bridge to that future -- a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives, and to buy us time to develop even greater new technologies.”