T. Boone Pickens On Expanded Oil Drilling: “East Coast, West Coast, ANWR, Get It All”
by Matthew McDermott, Brooklyn, NY on 07.23.08
photo by Madhav Pai
When Katie Couric allowed T. Boone Pickens to speak on CBS last week—I won’t call it an interview as Couric didn’t real probe any of Pickens’ statements to any great degree—he admitted that The Pickens Plan isn’t about greening the United State’s energy supply per se, it’s about energy independence. Fair enough, if the end result is a radical increase in renewable energy I can, to a certain degree, deal with differing motives for getting there. However, in a recent spot on The Situation Room, Pickens reveals that his oil drilling past sometimes still rises to the surface...Even if most of the time he says we can’t drill our way to energy independence.
You can watch the video clip at Huffington Post, but here’s the relevant question and answer:
Wolf Blitzer: “What about drilling offshore? There’s a debate, as you know, McCain says, ‘yes, go ahead and drill off the coast of Florida and California.’ Obama says, ‘No.’ You’re an oil man. What do you say?”
T. Boone Pickens: “OK. McCain says, ‘OK off the east and west coast.’ I say east, west coast and ANWR—get it all! To get off of foreign oil, that is the enemy...You’re drilling and whatever you are able to find and put into the domestic system will help us.”
Offshore, ANWR Will Be Too Little, Too Late
At risk of belaboring the point, the amount of oil contained in areas offshore in which drilling is now prohibited is so small that not only will it be at least ten years before it makes it into the domestic oil supply, but will only add 250,000 barrels a day to a current daily demand of 21 million barrels. Likewise, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would not add much either: perhaps a peak of 876,000 barrels per day, by 2025.
Even if both of these areas were fully exploited—ignoring entirely the environmental impacts—the U.S. would still have to import the vast majority of its petroleum. Neither will have any significant impact on reducing oil prices, or in increasing U.S. energy independence. If you want to simply make more money pumping oil from these areas, at least be honest about it. Don’t keep feeding people the line that prohibitions on where oil companies can drill is the reason the U.S. has to import so much energy.
T. Boone Pickens, Offshore Oil Drilling
T. Boone Pickens Talks Natural Gas, Energy Independence, Peak OIl and Swift Boating with Katie Couric
Pickens Pushes His Plan, Testifies Before Congress
Water Pipeline Not Wind Power, Real Reason Pickens Can Build Transmission Lines
I’m John McCain and I Approve of Offshore Oil Drilling
It's simple, oil drilling isn't about making us energy independent, it's about feeding an addiction. And people find it agonizing, frustrating and sometimes traumatizing to break away from addictions, but is has to be done, and the sooner the better.
Quoth the poster:
"If you want to simply make more money pumping oil from these areas, at least be honest about it."
Why would they do that? If they can merely nudge the public in the right direction, they can get us to rampage up there and personally slaughter every last elk that stands in their way at no cost at all.
I know it's hard for us treehuggers to understand, but most everyone will do anything to get rich if they were given half a chance. If all it takes is to not even lie but to barely omit a few pertinent facts that noone asks about, then it's almost not even unethical. The problem is that the public *wants* to believe that increased oil production in places where it's banned will fix the problem. It's their oil addiction that needs to change.
Well said by all.
21 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in the US, at the CIA listed US daily consumption rate of 20.8 million barrels = ~ 1,000 days of foreign oil independence, or 33 months and 10 days. Not hard to see that this is no solution at all, when you do the math.
Regardless of motive it is probably, in general, a good thing when a high-powered figure like Pickens decides it's in his (and anyone else's) economic interest to invest/build alternative energy infrastructures. Two interesting issues concerning his efforts are mentioned in his recent interview in Fast Company magazine (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/126/a-mighty-wind.html). When asked if he'd put the turbines on his property he said "absolutely not they're ugly" or words to that affect. He's going to pay royalties to neighboring ranches/farms (good for them, I guess..). This is kind of off-putting in a nimby-ish way (so I guess he'd be rooting for putting them in Ted Kennedy's backyard in Nantucket Sound...) and I think could only add to the image issues wind power already suffers. The other issue being that while it could help minimize the oil dependence, wind power still frequently needs supplemental assistance in the form of gas or coal energy. All in all though these are probably good problems to have and I'm personally glad that alternatives are becoming part of the general discussion in both business and Washington.
It's also not hard to see that the end result will be opening everything up to drilling. Hopefully the economics of it will make it unattractive.
Oil companies are multinationals that sell on the world market. The product with flow to those offering the highest price and profits from these leases will flow directly to the oil companies without benefit to US consumers.
Unless there is some kind of requirement written into the proposed leases that the petroleum produced from these leases is sold ONLY to the US market, there is no chance of any positive effect on prices in the US. Not now, not 10 years from now, not ever.
Just one of the many costs of globalization.
If ANWR is opened up for drilling, why should it be a requirement for that oil to be sold in the USA? Yes, the price would be lower for Americans -- but what oil company would drill there if they were required to sell it for a reduced price to Americans? None, that's who.
Sure, everybody wants clean, renewable, cheap energy. But how do we get there? Simple - $$$. And we are not exactly building up our warchest by sending out hundreds of billions of dollars each year on foreign oil. So, yes, we need to stop sending money out and provide incentives for the oil companies to turn into energy companies that would build the infrastructure needed to support hydrogen, electricity, biofuel, etc. What this means in the short term is that we need to tap our oil as we make the transition to our long-term strategy of getting off of oil as fuel.
There was a petition from Newt Gingrich which over one million Americans signed and they presented it to congress last week. It is called "American Solutions for Winning The Future". Left unchecked, this petition will gain congressional support and we will see oil drilling all over the country, with very little to pull out. Oil is limited and alternatives are plenty.
Cow power is electricity generated from cow manure. Livestock poop produces over 18% of the methane on Earth. Methane is a far worse GHG than CO2 and politicians haven't even talked about this one. Tomorrow I intend to call the radio station when T. Boone Pickns is interviewed and tell him about cow power. At least that is the plan.
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Since we could not find a vehicle registered for T. Boone Pickens, the oil man on television, see what vehicle his wife drives
http://webofdeception.com/#pickensauto
I regret saying this, but I am starting to think the conservative argument is going to crush the environmentalists. The issue is about the short term consequences of peak oil. It boils down to the US needing to do everything in it's power to do something about the mounting energy economic crisis, due to relentlessly rising oil prices. While personally I can believe the US might be capable of making radical changes across industry, politics, business, and all social strata. I am pessimistic about the prospects of that happening. Do everything! (to fight the problem) will become the watchwords, I'm afraid.