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I caught the commercial on TV and went to the web site. Here’s an ad badge for it…

I think Pickens definitely has one thing right… we need to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. That’s the basis of his “plan”.

Pickens is pushing wind energy to generate electricity, and using that to offset natural gas consumption so it can be redirected to fueling transportation. That’s right, your car running on Natural Gas (NGV).

Pickens contends that for about $1.2 trillion, we can generate 20% of the country’s electricity needs. He tells a compelling story about economic and job improvements, and is up front about the fact that he owns what will soon be the largest wind farm in the country.

Using wind to supply electricity is an excellent model, in my opinion.

I’m not sold on NGV yet. The mileage (based on information on the Honda Civic CNG) appears to be comparable to gasoline mileage in miles per gallon (although I’m guessing the gas powered Civic gets a little better mileage). The cost per gallon right now is substantially lower than gasoline (around $1.50 a gallon right now). Problem: the closest NG station to where I live (in Des Moines, Iowa) is in Kansas City, Missouri, about 2.5 hours away. There’s a bunch of stations in Chicago. None in Minneapolis. None in Iowa. I might look into it if we got some stations here in Des Moines AND if the price for the car was not so much higher that you couldn’t make a financial case for (which has been an issue for hybrids).

At this point, I think we try to promote this plan, although I’m interested in the thoughts of others on this. Notwithstanding, we still need to deal with oil. It’s not going away. We need to drill domestically and get our dependence on foreign countries, and as Pickens says, the huge transfer of wealth out of our county, ended. For good.

If we can tie Pickens and Gingrich into one plan, we may have a winner.

So, go to Pickens’ web site and let me know what you think.

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