The Pickens Plan

Eighty-year-old, billionaire, oil baron T. Boone Pickens believes that America’s oil era is over. He is now going full speed into the alternative energy business, building filling stations for CNG cars around the U.S. and spending $2 billion out of what he hopes will be $10 billion to build an enormous wind farm.

This is the beginning of his “Pickens Plan,” the goal of which is to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil by 30 percent within 10 years.

The plan will require $500 billion more in private investment and $150 billion in government subsidies. He wants the next president and congress to remake the electrical grid by declaring emergency eminent domain to run transmission lines through private lands across the country.

Despite being a longtime Republican (who many blame for Senator Kerry’s defeat by Bush in 2004), Pickens is strongly supporting Barak Obama because he knows that a Democratic administration is more likely to spend the money needed to achieve his goals.

Source: CBS: 60 Minutes (Oct 26, 2008)

Question: Do you think the Pickens Plan will come to fruition? Do you want the U.S. government to help finance it?

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