Photo by Aaron Burnett

A packed house was on hand Wednesday to hear T. Boone Pickens’ plan for American energy independence. The Texas billionaire has been traveling the country promoting a switch from petroleum based fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, in the transportation sector to natural gas. He is also promoting a massive build-out of the country’s wind generation infrastructure.

LAMAR—When it comes to the plans of eccentric billionaires, T. Boone Pickens is on his own plane. The one-time Texas oilman has recently gained the public spotlight with his plan to reorganize the U.S. energy market.

Every seat in the house was full Wednesday at the Elks Lodge as an overflow crowd spilled onto the patio to hear Pickens’ plan for U.S. energy independence.

Pickens has been holding information sessions at towns throughout the Great Plains and the Western U.S. The “Pickens Plan” calls for the transition of the nation’s vehicles from petroleum based fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, to compressed natural gas. Pickens also advocates the construction of 200,000 megawatts of wind generation facilities throughout what he refers to as the wind corridor, a stretch of land from Texas to North Dakota. The plan calls for governmental designation of national transmission line corridors to help with the establishment of a more robust national transmission system that can handle additional wind energy development.

The premise behind his cross country stumping has been America’s need to alleviate dependence on oil imports. According to Pickens’ estimates, the U.S. will spend $700 billion on foreign oil in 2008. On Wednesday, Pickens said U.S. imports of oil can be lowered substantially if natural gas was more widely harnessed for transportation needs. “If you took the 22 percent of the power generation from natural gas and put it over transportation you would lower our imports (oil) by 38 percent,” said Pickens.

The oilman has called for the transition to compressed natural gas to coincide with the expansion of wind generation. “We have plenty of gas in this country for fuel transportation-wise, but we also have enough gas to fuel power generation. But what will happen is that it will move out of power generation,” said Pickens.

Photo by Aaron Burnett

“On a comparative basis, gas to gasoline is about three times more for the gasoline,” said Pickens. “Domestic fuel (natural gas), it’s cleaner and it’s cheaper. It’s gonna drift over into the gasoline competition market, which is good. That’s where I want it to go because it’s going to replace foreign gasoline,” added the former oilman.

Congressman Mark Udall (D-Eldorado Springs), who is running this year for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Wayne Allard, was on hand Wednesday and praised Pickens plan. “I’ve all along said that he’s on point, he’s providing leadership that this is where America has to go, which is to do everything American. We’ve got to drill more. We’ve got to harvest our renewable energy. We have to develop our new biofuels industry. We have to take a fresh look at nuclear and of course we have to conserve and become more efficient,” said the congressman.

“It’s about all of us. It’s about America. We’re importing 70 percent of our oil today. That is a huge security problem for the country. The $700 billion that we’re paying for our 70 percent is very tough on our economy,” said Pickens.

“Just look at the turnout here, people want to do something. People know that this is the most patriotic thing we can do is to make our country more energy secure,” said Udall concerning peoples’ discussion of national energy policy moving forward.

Photo by Aaron Burnett

“What I want is the $700 billion spent in the United States, and then we’d really get the value of it. If there is any profit made off of $700 billion, which there will be, taxes are paid, jobs are created and the economy moves forward,” Pickens added.

“The $700 billion going out, we do get oil for it and the value of that oil must be $700 billion because that’s what we pay for it. But I think that it would be much, much better if we were buying $700 billion worth of natural gas and fueling our vehicles with that here and not have to go out and get the oil.”

Udall added that Pickens’ plan provides a great opportunity to the burgeoning renewable energy market in Colorado. “It’s exciting to have an oilman who said ‘this is the way forward.’ We’ve got to harvest the wind and this has such ramifications for Colorado because we have abundant wind, we have abundant sun, we have abundant brainpower,” said Udall.

“If you don’t solve this problem, you’re not going to have to deal with health care or education because you’re not going to have any money to do it,” concluded Pickens.