T. Boone Pickens Knows Energy - So Does George Chapman, His Amarillo Neighbor
T. Boone Pickens has captured America’s attention with his PickensPlan for energy. He recently testified in front of the US Senate and provided them with some excellent information about oil and gas depletion, asked repeatedly for them to continue supplying the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and described how there were perfectly located corridors in the US that were the “Saudia Arabia” of wind.
He has been running advertisements on major media outlets describing a clear challenge - America now sends $700 Billion across its borders every year to purchase oil.
Pickens has a plan to reduce that number and he intends to share the details of the plan during the coming weeks. He has been an oilman all his life; that has made him a strong believer in Peak Oil.
As a professional geologist and energy investor, he believes that the only way that the world’s oil supply and demand will be balanced in the future is for the price to achieve a high enough level to drive down the demand. He does not see any hope of dramatically increasing the rate of daily production above its current level of 85 million barrels of oil per day.
Pickens’s publicly released plan is to build a trillion dollars worth of wind turbines and 200 billion dollars worth of transmission lines in order to supply 20% of the US electricity market with wind. He claims that will push large quantities of domestic natural gas out of the electricity market and into the vehicle market as a replacement for gasoline and diesel fuel.
Pickens knows the energy business, and knows his geology. He also understands geography and I bet he can play a mean hand of poker.
The reason for the transition from energy to poker is that I believe that Pickens has a much better hand than he has revealed. The details on the visible cards do not add up - natural gas supplies 20% of the electrical power in the US, but a significant portion of the gas that we use for electricity is quick response peaking power in low capital cost gas turbines. If wind supplied 20% of the electrical power in the US, that portion of the gas use would certainly not decrease because wind blows when it wants to, not when the grid operator turns the knobs.
In my opinion, Pickens’s hole card is the energy source that he mentions only at the very end of his list of energy sources during his Senate testimony - nuclear. I watched the video a couple of times and realized that his poker face slipped just a little bit. When he had one of his people show a graph of the wind resources in the US, he said that they are in the right places “for safety”.
No one generally talks about putting wind in remote areas because of safety. Having wind and solar resources concentrated in places where few people live is more of a challenge than an advantage, since the energy has to be shipped a long way. People do, however, talk about putting large nuclear power plants into areas with low population density for safety reasons. (I am not one of them, but bear with me here.)
Pickens is a lifelong resident of Amarillo, Texas, owns a 68,000 acre ranch in Roberts County, and owns the water rights to a portion of the Ogallala Aquifer.
He also has a neighbor named George Chapman who has announced plans to build two large Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPR) in Amarillo. Each of those reactors will produce 1600 MW of 24 x 7 electrical power. They are also designed with load following capabilities.
Mr. Chapman understands that there is a race on to build new nuclear plants in the US, with a significant financial reward waiting for those who cross the finish line in front. As he told Amarillo.com during an interview in early 2007, “If we didn’t think we were going to win it, we wouldn’t get in the race,” Chapman said. When Mr. Chapman first discussed his plans, people asked several questions including:
- Who will buy the power? (The sparsely populated Texas Panhandle does not need 3200 MW of electricity.)
- Where will you get the cooling water needed for large pressurized water reactors?
When Pickens completes a transmission corridor from his planned wind farms to population centers like Dallas-Ft. Worth, the lines will be able to provide a higher return on the investment by carrying reliable nuclear generated power as well as the intermittent power provided by the wind turbines.
Amarillo Power’s reactors will also displace a lot more gas from the electrical power grid than covering the panhandle of Texas with as many wind turbines as we can possibly build between now and 2016, which is when I predict that Chapman’s reactors will start operating.
Intriguing hypothesis, don’t you think?
Photo credits
CNG Pump © Christine Gable – About.com Hybrid Cars & Alt Fuels
Hole card - Rod Adams under Creative Commons
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Rod Adams is the publisher of Atomic Insights, the host of The Atomic Show Podcast and the founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
ondrejch:
You are right on a global scale, but it really does matter to me which BTU’s we are buying (oil BTUs from people that do not like us very much or natural gas BTUs from neighbors) during the time that we are building up our non-combustion alternatives.
I agree and I also see another source I have never heard used that would generate as much ot more than solar or wind. I wonder if MR Perkins would be interested in hearing about it. Carole Joy
Only the first hand is being played. This is a battle means, this is a poker tournament. This man leaks Americana from the folds of his countenance.
The Natural Gas card is plays in nobody’s hand except Boone’s. He’s like the western barroom dealer that’s made a lifestyle of stacking the decks and keeping the piano player happy.
He’s a fair card shark though, he wants to give us wind power, a corridor, which you aptly point out.
Corridors through nations have synergies with all markets. I see a phone company rollout plan using the Wind Farms as wireless tower. That would get the telecom lobby on your side.
The economies of scale here are truly magnificent, perhaps the price you pay in these rural communities is being closer to the nuclear power plants, and you get free electricity in that community, that could be done. The sky’s the limit. A small nuclear accident or two in the United States is the lesser of two evils when the other is perpetual war for oil.
If the wars for oil ceased, I would live in one of those communities, of course the Wind Farms will be near them also. With all that electricity the vertical center of the United States will see population changes. This whole plan is huge, huge, huge, it’s amazing that http://www.pickensplan.com provides a wonderful glimpse into the behind the scenes production of this magnificent plan, this incredible poker game with energy policy.
I want this to happen now.
I’m sure that T. Boone Pickens will play any game that he can break even in or win to help this great nation remove itself from dependence on oil owned by persons we make war upon to wrest control of those resources.
I think Boone is a bit ashamed of where we are, perhaps the dealer let the wrong people into the game.
Let’s watch the show, and again, this Natrual Gas thing can go in other directions, including nuclear. I’m sure Boone plays bridge as well … well, maybe not.
[...] T. Boone Pickens Knows Energy and So Does George Chapman [...]
Almost any internal combustion engine will run on Hydrogen. Hydrogen can be generated by an electroylist unit. The car then essentially runs on water. Go to http://www.youtube.com and type “in automobile that runs on water”. The Japanese are producing a car that runs on hydrogen but it would require “hydrogen stations” WAKE UP DETROIT!!!