T. Boone Pickens flees from Q&A at Dem. Conv. about his "energy plan"

by: peacearena

Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 16:57:19 PM CDT

T. Boone Pickens' Fancy Sales Pitch

Devilstower and I just went to a talk here at the DNC featuring T. Boone Pickens. Everyone was under the impression that the event would involve an actual discussion (as in, a Q & A session, like nearly all of the other Big Tent special topic sessions). We had a really energetic live blog thread going, where all of you were submitting questions.

Sorry, guys. Apparently, the whole thing was just a sales pitch.  T. Boone hightailed it out of there before anyone could even raise their hand.

I'll post some excerpts below, but really, go to the original, where you can also read the comments, which are just as illuminating.

Maybe he was afraid we'd ask questions like:

   

In 2004, you helped pay for the Swift Boat ads, along with fellow billionaire Harold Simmons, who's funding the Ayres attack ads this cycle. If you're willing to tolerate, and even encourage, that level of dishonesty in political discourse, why should we trust you on any subject?

   (From Devilstower)

I wanted to ask him:

   Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma is well known for saying that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," and is one of the most outspoken climate change science deniers around, as well as being joined at the hip with the oil companies.

   In your presentation today, you specifically said that you "believe global warming is real".

   

However, you have heavily funded James Inhofe's campaign.  How do you reconcile your support for Inhofe with your promotion of renewable energy programs?

From an energy expert acquaintance via email:

   

Can you please explain why people should take your plan seriously when, for example, you do not include any energy efficiency measures within it?

For a real and honest debate on the topic of energy policy, see the liveblogging thread.

On which Devilstower summed up the Pickens Plan with this update:
Update [2008-8-27 15:7:47 by Devilstower]: And T. Boone heads for the door without taking a single question. Which makes the whole presentation worth about as much as day old spit.

Update:

This comment on the Daily Kos thread explains the real motivation behind Pickens' Plan -- and it ain't altruism, folks.

 Again, Here Is Picken's Profit Play

I'm involved in this industry.  His play is rather transparent.  He is cornering the retail CNG (compressed natural Gas) and LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) fueling stations through his entity Clean Energy Fuels Corp.  He's pretty much already accomplished this in Texas by purchasing all of the CNG/LNG stations there form the state utility company.  He is also working to do it in Oklahoma and California right now.  These three states plus Utah are the big prize because they have the fueling station infrastructure already in place.  

This is how he hopes to make it big.  It's extremely simple.  The fueling stations are supplied by CNG that gets the fuel wholesale for about $.50/gallon.  In fact, if you go to a CNG station now in Oklahoma, you can get CNG for something just above that, or about $.85/gallon.  Boone wants to get into these stations and raise the price to the public to about $2.50/gallon and he wants to do this prior to the everybody converting to CNG - That way no public outcry b/c no one realizes that he has increased prices and public thinks they are getting great deal b/c CNG still a lot cheaper than gas.

Of course this only works if people convert to CNG.  That's why Pickens is spending tens of millions of dollars(personally and through his subsidiary Clean Energy Finance) to promote and incentivize the conversions.  If all this works (the conversions happen and he corners the retail CNG market in just the 4 states mentioned above), Pickens would quickly become the wealthiest person in the world and would be profiting hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

That's the deal.  

by JCPOK on Wed Aug 27, 2008 at 03:11:56 PM CDT