T. Boone Pickens: Let's transform energy -- with natural gas

[DearSummer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIFFFGf1ZRE

Hard to disagree with T. Boone on this one. I wonder how realistic it is to switch autos over to natural gas? What challenges are there?

[CDNPatriot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIFFFGf1ZRE

Hard to disagree with T. Boone on this one. I wonder how realistic it is to switch autos over to natural gas? What challenges are there?

Google is your friend...

You want to raise taxes to pay for the infrastructure to support natural gas automobiles?

It's okay let the free market forces decide

I'm with Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. I say solar will rule 20-50 years from now.

[DearSummer]

Google is your friend...

You want to raise taxes to pay for the infrastructure to support natural gas automobiles?

It's okay let the free market forces decide.

I'm with Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. I say solar will rule 20-50 years from now.

Wow you watched a 20 minute video in 5 minutes. Impressive!

[CDNPatriot]

Actually 2 minutes... the instant he mentioned natural gas I turned it off. I follow his stock holdings on gurufocus.com and he has a substantial amount invested in companies that have huge natural gas reserves. Hence, a tad bit biased.

[DearSummer]

Actually 2 minutes... the instant he mentioned natural gas I turned it off. I follow his stock holdings on gurufocus.com and he has a substantial amount invested in companies that have huge natural gas reserves. Hence, a tad bit biased.

Wait, he is investing in what he believes is the futue of energy in America? Shocking!

[CDNPatriot]

Wait, he is investing in what he believes is the futue of energy in America? Shocking!

Yeah and given his age, he is looking to make a quick buck by creating hype and selling on hype and not waiting around 20 years for this to happen.

[Mark77]

Hard to disagree with T. Boone on this one. I wonder how realistic it is to switch autos over to natural gas? What challenges are there?

Its not all that realistic to switch autos over, and there are bigger fish to fry, at least in the short-medium term. If the government really wanted energy efficiency in the transportation sector, they'd push for a massive switchover to diesel in the short term -- a fuel for which a robust refining and distribution network already exists, with minimal changes required to manufacturing infrastructure to actually produce the vehicles.

Also, the thing to keep in mind is that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing doesn't change the amount of gas resource available, but rather, dramatically increases its depletion rate. With the former methods of drilling, we may have had 100 years of resource available. With this new method (for example), we may be able to consume the entirety of the available economic resources within 20 years. The scary thing, IMHO, is to build an economy based on this cheap gas, only to see the price go back to $10+ like it was circa 2005, or even in 2000 -- in which case, we'd really be in for a world of hurt.

The best uses, IMHO, would be to use this gas rennissance to revive our domestic petrochemicals and manufacturing industry, rather than simply using this gas as a short-term crutch to an electricity crunch (for instance) instead of investing in long-term options such as nuclear, coal, etc. Governments that dis-incentivize gas production and depletion today -- may very well be preserving resources for tomorrow when the prices are dramatically higher.

[charliebrown]

Actually, the use of frack & horizontal drilling does increase the amount of reserve, especially the variety thats now economically viable to extract.
i remember a couple of years back, the "big" thing with nat gas was coal-bed methane. But with today's low gas prices, CBM is no longer a viable option.

heck if we/US dont build up our use of nat gas, there's always the LNG export option :)

[DougO]

Nothing new up here. Cab companies switched over a long time ago. Now if he was advocating figuring out how to make a fusion reactor work and putting money into that, maybe I'd sit up and listen. :lol: