You're not a Hypocrite Mr T. Boone Pickens; I am

This post is a product of the thoughts and impressions I had while attending a "Town Hall Meeting" for T. Boone Pickens in Salt Lake City Utah on September 11, 2008. (If you don't know who Mr. Pickens is, please watch the video I've posted on this blog, it pretty much covers the same information he went over) Before I launch into the meat of the subject matter I have to make two observations that are completely off topic.

1. I hate going out in public by myself! It makes me incredibly uncomfortable, I feel vulnerable, and all in all I don't like it.
2. Curse the man that designed the seats that link together to form an un-breakable chain of torture. I am not a large man, in fact if clothing store demographics are any indicator I'm pretty much average. Those things mistakenly identified as chairs are two small for the average male! I had half a cheek on another chair throughout the entire presentation, and was painfully aware of the obscene proximity of my neighbors.

To the matter at hand:

As I prepared myself to go to the Pickens Plan Party, a horrible thought occurred to me. Mr. Pickens is a billionaire. Literally. He didn't get super rich by being a chump, and generally guys that amass that kind of money just keep on rolling like its a bad habit or something. What if Mr. Pickens is only pretending to be altruistic, and using this "Grass roots movement" to further his latest investments and money making strategies....

That thought gave me pause as I walked to the convention center.

Upon arriving, my fears started to take on form. Individuals were prowling the corridors and sidewalks handing out fliers that implied Pickens was pushing his ideas because he's the owner of one of the major natural gas distributors in the nation and he's making a killing on it. He's actually trying to buy Questar gas as well, and if he does this handout predicts we'll see the price of natural gas quadruple over night.

"Great," I thought "I've fallen for another mans get richer schemes." And inspite of a moderately strong desire to leave then and there, I sat down to give it a fair listen. Things started to look up after that.

It began with a lovely elderly couple sitting down in front of me wearing matching pro-Obama t-shirts. That lead to an equally lovely conversation about whether or not Palin was going to be McCains white night and save the campaign. That died down, and the waiting began. The show was 15 minutes late in getting started, further retarded by Gov. Huntsmans pompous posturings. Mr Pickens got right to the meat of the situation, and the stats (I know what they say about statistics but bear with me here) are scary:

1. In the 1970's the US oil production peaked at roughly 10 Million barrels/day.
2. Currently we only produce 5 Million barrels/day of the 85 Million barrels/day worldwide.
   
3. The US accounts for 25% of world oil consumption, 4% of the population, and only 3% of the reserves.
4. 67% of our oil is being imported right now, to the tune of $700 Billion being paid annually by Americans to foreigners.
5. 5 years ago, OPEC countries earned roughly $250 Billion from oil sales. This year they're on track to earn $1 Trillion dollars from oil sales.

Those numbers are not pretty. And in the face of those frightening statistics, T. Boone pointed out that we (as a nation) made our bed and now we have to lie there. I thought that was a remarkable reminder of accountability. He also made the very appropriate comment that this is a problem we can not drill our way out of. I like that phrase.

Long story short, his goal is to use wind power to replace the energy from the natural gas power plants. Then take the natural gas and use it in automobiles to cut our foreign oil consumption by 38%.

After everything was said and done, I still wasn't sure about Mr. Pickens. He's either a shrewd business man thats using public sentiment and frenzy to his advantage, or he's such a firm believer in his own cause that he's sinking billions of dollars into making it happen. Either way, his ideas still have merit of their own, and while it's not perfect, it's a heck of a lot better than no plan at all.

So why am I a hypocrite? The answer will come in tomorrow's post. I'm exhausted and am going to bed.