I watched the c-span video at the bottom of the PickensPlan Web page. Pickens says that, out of 85 million barrels of oil produced globally per day, the U.S. uses 21 million barrels. Of the 21 million barrels, 75% is used as fuel in transportation. So about 16 million barrels a day goes for U.S. transportation costs. That leaves 5 million barrels to be used for other things. The 21 million barrels per day ends up costing us about $700 billion per year.
Pickens then talks about electricity generation in the U.S. Currently, 22% of our power is generated using natural gas. Pickens believes that the U.S. can replace this 22% with wind energy by building windmill farms basically in a strip right down the center of the U.S. (that’s where the most wind is).
Pickens goes on to say that once wind has replaced natural gas as an electricity generator, we can use the natural gas to fuel our vehicles. He says that wind power is competive cost-wise with other energy sources and that natural gas is about half the cost of gasoline.
However, the catch is that it will take 20 to 30 years to build up the wind-power infrastructure in order to completely replace the natural-gas portion of the power grid. I don’t think we have that much time.
I think the better, more immediate solution is a switch to ultra-efficient vehicles like the Tesla (256-mpg equivalent) and the 1-litre car from Volkswagen (~220mpg equivalent).
With vehicles like this and a concerted effort at fuel conservation, we can decrease the oil that goes to transportation by around 90% or so. That means instead of 16 million barrels a day for transportation, we would only need 1.6 million barrels. Combine that with the 5 million barrels used for other things and you have a total U.S. daily demand for oil of around 7 million barrels. I think the U.S. produces right about that much oil currently.
I agree that we should take a serious look at all alternative sources of energy and I hope Congress examines and seriously considers Pickens’ plan. We have the renewable wind resource, so we might as well start taking advantage of it. However, I think advances in vehicle technology which make them more fuel efficient is going to beat Pickens to the punch.
