DENVER – OK … he bought everybody in The Big Tent lunch today. Pickens sponsored a meal for all the bloggers here catered by Wahoo’s Fish Tacos (I had a steak burrito). Later Pickens took to the main stage where he was joined by Sierra Club president Carl Pope and Center for American Progress president John Podesta. Pope and Podesta enthusiastically endorsed the Pickens plan. Coupled with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s personal investment and rhetorical support for Pickens, it is becoming clear that the left is adopting the Pickens energy platform as their own.
Pickens took the time to explain his plan, and he did not skip over the part where he advocates developing our own natural gas resources to power our transportation industry. Pope spoke next and he sounded just like Nancy Pelosi did this Sunday, explaining he supported the Pickens plan since we needed to “move away from fossil fuels and to alternatives.” The reality that natural gas is a fossil fuel that must be drilled before it magically appears in trucks, seemed to totally escape Pope.
Podesta then asked for Pickens’ thoughts on the conservative “drill here, drill now” campaign. Pickens said that he did not believe the Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that show there are 18.7 billion barrels currently off limits in the Outer Continental Shelf and another 10.3 billion barrels in ANWR. Pickens claimed there was, at best, 5% of the oil the EIA says there is in those banned areas. He didn’t explain how he knew this. Nor did he say if he thought the EIA was also wrong about the 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas they say is also in banned areas of the OCS.
To mister conn carroll,, I understand Mr pickins is very wealthy but how can he not know or is he ignoring the fact that we are importing NG and like oil the outcome is going to be the same, unaffordable unobtainable, the only question I have is the rate that it's going occure at, It seems to me as dangerus as it may sound compressed liquid hydrogen as far as I know IS sustainable and can be manufactured using atom power,, the green anti energy people say it's hard to stop it from leaking from the containers but if lets say ten percent were lost to leakage whats the problem it does not damage the enviroment at all we still get ninty percent usage of the remaining fuel and being manufactured with nuclear power it's nearly free and all the mony stays in the U.S.A., PLEASE tell me what I'm missing here, tom.