America's Energy Future and PickensPlan

Milken Institute Global Conference Panel:
Ted Turner and T. Boone Pickens on America's Energy Future

Speakers:

• T. Boone Pickens, Entrepreneur and Philanthropist; Founder, BP Capital
• Ted Turner, Chairman, Turner Enterprises Inc.

Moderator:

• Michael Milken, Chairman, Milken Institute

Ted Turner didn't mince words: "We've gotta get off the Titanic before it sails." He and T. Boone Pickens argued passionately that America has to start weaning itself off foreign oil imports — and do it now.

Their session began with a recap of how president after president has pledged to achieve energy independence, while the percentage of U.S. oil imported from foreign sources in volatile regions has continued to climb. Today the nation imports some two-thirds of its oil.

"We're paying for both sides of the war," said Pickens, insisting that oil money sent to the Middle East is paying for terrorists and the Taliban. He expressed optimism that President Obama has pledged to end oil imports from the Middle East within 10 years, but was quick to add: "We have to remind him." Pickens pointed out that the U.S. represents about 4 percent of world's population but consumes 25 percent of the world's oil, an equation that's just not sustainable. He called for transitioning the nation's fleet of 18-wheelers to natural gas immediately.


The big question of the day is whether Washington has the political will to effect a fundamental change in America's energy consumption. Turner expressed worry about the influence of special interests and argued that the U.S. has to end oil and coal subsidies to level the playing field for renewables.

Pickens pointed out that China is already moving to ensure its energy independence, and the United States can, too. He believes strongly that we will see a strong energy bill passed this year or next, noting how many millions had signed onto the Pickens Plan online. He believes the grassroots effort can make something happen — and "scare the hell out of those politicians."

Both men agreed that time is of the essence and acting is crucial to our children's livelihoods and lives. Reducing America's reliance on foreign oil, transitioning to natural gas and turning to renewable sources will be a win all around, in terms of national security, economic stability, jobs, cleaning up the environment and fighting climate change.

"We have to go to wind and solar eventually," said Turner. "Why not now? . . . Let's do the right thing and we'll all get rich!"

Watch the full panel discussion online at Milken Institute's web page.

The Crisis

Our dependence on foreign oil forms the intersection of the three most critical issues America currently faces: the economy, the environment and our national security.

The Pickens Plan

America is blessed with the world's greatest wind power corridor and enormous reserves of clean natural gas. The Pickens Plan utilizes these tremendous resources to build a bridge to the future — a blueprint to reduce foreign oil dependence by harnessing domestic energy alternatives and buying time for us to develop even greater new technologies and distribution systems.

The Plan calls for building new wind generation facilities that will produce 20% of our nation's electricity while using our abundant domestic natural gas supply as a transportation fuel as well as for power generation. The combination of these domestic energies can replace more than one-third of our foreign oil imports. And we can do it all in 10 years.

Transition in Action: Energy Descent Action Plan of Totnes and District

‘Transition in Action’ is the UK’s first comprehensive Energy Descent Action Plan designed for and by a local community. It sees the changes necessitated by climate change, peak oil and the UK’s debt crisis not as a crisis, but as a huge opportunity for entrepreneurship, creativity, community, enhanced resilience and a greater quality of life. In these pages you will find not just a vision of a more resilient world, but practical steps to reach it, key research, inspired ideas and a glimpse into the town’s recent past and what we can learn from it. The online version of the Totnes and District Energy Descent Action Plan is available here.

What is an Energy Descent Action Plan?

An Energy Descent Action Plan is a guide to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and reducing our carbon footprint over the next 20 years, during which we expect many changes associated with declining oil supplies and some of the impacts of climate change to become more apparent. In this EDAP we have built a picture of this future scenario based on visions of a better future. What we have tried in the process to invite the community to dream how the future could be, and to then work out the practical pathways by which we actually get there.

"Transition in Action, Totnes 2030, an Energy Descent Action Plan" by Transition Town Totnes has been scripted & edited by Jacqi Hodgson with Rob Hopkins

Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change

Concerns over climate change and energy depletion are increasing exponentially. Mainstream solutions still assume a panacea that will cure our climate ills without requiring any serious modification to our way of life.

Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change explores the risks inherent in trying to continue our energy-intensive lifestyle. Using dirtier fossil fuels (Plan A) or switching to renewable energy sources (Plan B) allows people to remain complacent in the face of potential global catastrophe. Dramatic lifestyle change is the only way to begin to create a sustainable, equitable world.

Excerpts from the Preface to Plan C by Pat Murphy:

We are facing multiple grave world crises— peak oil, climate change, inequity and species extinction to name just a few. When I began this book our situation was very serious — now it is life threatening. The survival of industrial society as we know it today is in doubt. Twenty years of so-called sustainability conversations have led nowhere, and green has degenerated into a marketing term. The time for scientific and technological solutions to problems caused by science and engineering is long past. Survival requires that we begin to see that energy technology is the root cause of many serious world problems. As William Jevons pointed out decades ago, ever more efficient machines designed by scientists and engineers means ever-increasing consumption of fossil fuels and more generation of CO2.

Our problem is cultural, not technical. It is a character issue, not a scientific one. We have never bothered to ask or answer the question “What is energy for?” We have allowed cheap fossil fuels to change us from citizens into mere consumers.

Plan C offers an alternative perspective to the ever more frantic technical proposals for continuing our soul destroying and life endangering way of living. This book opens with a few chapters intended to “make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves,” a starting point for many 12 step programs. In Part I, I take that moral inventory, describing the morally central core issues of fossil fuel depletion, human-caused climate change and global inequity. I relate peak oil to our economy— a word which, together with free market, defines us principally as self-centered consumers rather than as caring citizens. The growth economy has been based on the principle “greed is good,” and the results are disastrous. I review the history of imperialism, especially in the West, and the greed and violence it displays towards the planet’s human and non-human inhabitants. I show that US imperialism has its own history of greed, aggression and cruelty, extending within as well as beyond the national borders. The automobile — possibly the most destructive machine ever built, both of the physical world and of human communities — is addressed along with the electricity generating power plant, the fixed counterpoint to the automobile. The automobile and power plant are the key technologies that produce the CO2 that is so dangerously altering the planet’s climate. Finally I summarize the two institutions, the corporation and the media, that deliberately foster the delusion that the pursuit of personal satisfaction will advance the social good, which keeps us in a trance that all will be well.

Part II is solution focused and covers strategies and action plans. Community is the core aspect of a new set of values and a new consciousness that must replace the consumer driven mentality. Next I define some of the expertise and abilities we need to develop to live in a low energy world. This brings abstract national problems down to the personal level so we can recognize our own culpability for our personal day-to-day choices and habits. It also describes the major areas for individual energy reduction in the household sector — our cars, our homes and our food. I devote four chapters to the household economy — that part of the GNP under personal direct control. The problems and solutions for buildings, for cars and for our food are described in detail. All of us must in fact regain a set of skills and knowledge which atrophied while we put our trust in corporate producers. These are not tips chapters but rather explanations of what we must know in order to make good decisions and to determine which skills we will need for the new world economy.

In Part III, I discuss the new cultural context that we must create to survive. I emphasize the personal steps we must take, in particular breaking our addiction to machines that use fossil fuels. I discuss the media and emphasize our need to break free from this second addiction, one that allows society to be controlled by powerful corporations. I also cover the current focus on localization — an effort to counter the destructive trend toward globalization.

This is definitely a numbers book. It is focused on analysis and shows by such analysis the tremendous risks we are taking as we attempt to perpetuate, by dubious technological means, the fossil fuel-based society and growth oriented economy. It is also historical. It challenges the authority of our scientific and technological communities and exposes our poor collective record when it comes to managing fossil fuels and CO2 responsibly.

My thesis is that the best of American culture has been seriously degraded since becoming addicted to oil. We used to have fewer material goods but better relationships. The country was less violent. Our citizens sought to avoid entanglement in foreign affairs. The United States had cleaner water, healthier ecosystems, and more caring human relationships. It had neighborhood schools and unlocked doors. It had community in the best sense of that word. Much of this has been lost. We have gained wealth but we are losing our souls. The national soul desperately needs rework. Our best examples of community-focused living, and the sustaining relationships it fosters, show us exactly what to strive for. But the time remaining is limited, and the urgency of engaging ourselves in this work can not be overstated.

Check out the Community Solutions site for more details on Plan C.