T. Boone Pickens Energy Plan

Have you seen T. Boone Pickens TV ads about reducing our dependence on foreign oil? I checked out the Pickens Plan site and it really got me jazzed.

The item that really stood out for me:

As imports grow and world prices rise, the amount of money we send to foreign nations every year is soaring. At current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone — that's four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.

Projected over the next 10 years the cost will be $10 trillion — it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.

The American plains states are the "Saudi Arabia" of wind power!

Win-Win-Win Idea For Plug In Electric Vehicles

The Wall Street Journal reports that GM is working with many regional electricity providers to guarantee a smooth transition for the Chevy Volt. If there's no electricity available to support a lot of these cars, it will be a colossal failure.

Heretofore, the government has offered income tax rebate incentives to support U.S. consumers' purchases of hybrid vehicles.

For electric vehicles, the federal government should move the incentives from the individual to the electrical grid. Subsidize electricity rates between 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. If the technology exists to detect a plug in vehicle is attached, as suggested by the WSJ article, perhaps subsidize that rate down to FREE! This would encourage people to buy electric vehicles, promote the fledgling electric vehicle industry, keep recharging off of peak times by taking advantage of spare capacity at power plants during night time hours, and help us get off of foreign oil.

That's a win-win-win-win proposition!

A separate WSJ article talks of Venezuela wanting to form a bank with oil-exporting Russia. The Venezuelans, in cahoots with Iran, are already pushing to trade oil in a currency other than the U.S. dollar. How long before they can really cut us off? The time to act is NOW!
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Bush Flip Flops On Offshore Drilling

Just six days later, it's all the Democratic Congress's fault:

President George W. Bush intensified pressure on Congressional Democrats to end an offshore drilling moratorium, saying lawmakers have closed off 'vast' oil reserves that could be tapped to lower record gasoline prices.

"The sooner Congress lifts the ban, the sooner we can get these resources from the ocean floor to the gas pump," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Democratic leaders need to show that they have finally heard the frustrations of the American people."

Bush on July 14 lifted a presidential ban on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf and called on Congress to remove its own moratorium. Areas currently off-limits could hold 17.8 billion barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Interior Department.

That's right. Bush, too, was blocking off-shore drilling a week earlier. It was a good idea then. Now, not so much. Flip-flopper caving in to the polls. What he doesn't say is that states can still block it. It will be NIMBY...the residents of CA will say they don't want to drill off Santa Barbara, but they won't understand why FL won't drill off St. Pete — and vice versa.

George, you're still failure of unprecedented proportions.
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Middle East Energy Crisis

Just read an interesting Wall Street Journal article on energy consumption in the Middle East. It says that the population of 300 million in the Middle East and North Africa consume almost as much energy as the 1.2 billion people in China!

Iran is a net refined gasoline importer even though it sits on one of the largest oil patches in the world. It gets 85% of its budget revenues from oil exports but experts say they will only be able to produce enough oil for themselves within 10 years. More consumption, less exports, budget crisis, political instability.

This is why they are hell-bent on nuclear energy to help with electricity consumption and keeping the natives from getting restless. (Of course, that doesn't mean that they are/aren't developing nuclear weapons along side the power plant efforts.)

Iran's economy is circling the drain and there will be more political instability as it gets closer to a full-on flush and the government tries to hold onto power.
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