by Christine Hall
September 22, 2008

Washington, D.C., September 22, 2008— T. Boone Pickens, the oil man now advocating wind energy and subsidies, is scheduled today to tout his plan for massive wind power subsidies at a noontime speech before the National Press Club. CEI energy policy experts are available for comment on the feasibility of the Pickens plan.

"Pickens wants us all to drive cars powered by natural gas. Yet CNG-powered cars are heavier, much more expensive and take 20 hours to refuel at home. They're just not a serious alternative to the gasoline-powered car." – Iain Murray, CEI Senior Fellow

“Obviously, the [Pickens] plan itself is not feasible: wind power is expensive and intermittent. Moreover, the majority of the population, and therefore electrical demand, live on the coasts, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the proposed wind farms.” – Keith Moody for OpenMarket.org. Read more.

"...the Pickens Plan is based on a gigantic oversight. If, as EIA forecasts, U.S. electric demand will increase almost 29 percent by 2030, then generating the equivalent of 20 percent of current U.S. electric power from wind would yield no surplus natural gas over the next two decades. We would end up with lots of wind farms but no significant reduction in petroleum dependence." – Marlo Lewis, CEI Senior Fellow, for PlanetGore. Read more.

Experts available for comment:

Myron Ebell, CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy
Iain Murray, CEI Senior Fellow
William Yeatman, CEI Energy Policy Analyst

Read the CEI OpenMarket blog on Pickens

Read more on energy and global warming @ GlobalWarming.org

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