Pickens Plan for Energy Independence
Today, we used 21 million barrels of oil in the US. Actually, we do this every day. That accounts for 25% of global production. We import 13 million barrels of oil per day of which 5 million barrels come from OPEC. Much of that 5 million barrels comes from the Middle East.
T. Boone Pickens has a plan to replace the 5 million barrels of foreign oil with domestic alternatives. Here is how he wants us to do it.
Step 1: There are 8 million 18 wheeler big rigs in the US. If we convert them to run on natural gas, we’ll reduce our oil usage by 2.5 million barrels per day. This should be achievable in seven years reducing our foreign oil imports by 2.5 million barrels per day. This gets us half the way there.
Step 2: In the US, we have 250 million vehicles, 700 billion barrels of oil equivalent of natural gas and many other choices for transportation fuel. Americans have 8 years to decide what their family is going to drive. Over the next 8 years there will be many innovations in transportation fuel and technology that will improve on choices such as Batteries, hybrids, natural gas, ethanol, butane, propane, biofuels, take your pick.
If we make this change as a nation, we can eliminate imported oil.
This should not be a Republican or Democrat thing. It’s an American thing. Natural gas is 30% cleaner than diesel. It’s abundant and cheap.
- 1 mcf of Natural Gas is equivalent to 7 gallons of gasoline
- 1 mcf of natural gas costs $5
- 7 gallons of gas is $21
Obama said during his campaign that he will cut all imports of oil in 10 years. Pickens Plan can get us there. No politics involved.
We spend 1 billion dollars a day for foreign oil. We’re going to bring this money back into our economy. Just by converting the 8 million big rigs to natural gas, we’ll save 100 billion dollars. We can solve the foreign oil issue on our own in 8 years and create jobs while we’re doing it.
Are you ready to make the change? I am.
