Hooray for T. Boone Pickens

An oil man has created a plan to reduce American dependence foreign oil. T. Boone Pickens says that drilling for more oil is not going to solve the energy crisis and he proposes a plan to that may help. You can check out his plan at PickensPlan.com. According to his numbers in 1970 we imported 24% of our oil from foreign countries. Currently we import 70% of our oil from foreign countries. This is at a cost of $700 billion dollars which in ten years will be 7 trillion dollars. Mr. Pickens calls this the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. He feels it’s time we look towards renewable, domestic energy sources like wind, solar and natural gas. By turning to these sources we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by almost 40% or $300 billion.

I applaud Mr. Pickens for his vision and for taking a stand. However, let’s be clear. Mr. Pickens is a business man. He sees the financial opportunity in renewable energy and he knows that profits from oil are on the downturn. His plan is about reducing American dependence on foreign oil. If this happens to planet friendly then that’s great but that is not his objective. He has not become an environmentalist overnight. He is still guided by capitalism. It just so happens that his plan offers a solution that is planet friendly and good for our national security as well.