I personally liked what he said, that when it comes to the debate of drilling domestically he believes we should drill, but that we will still be dependent on foreign oil. Because of that we are going to need to develop new technologies such as wind (what he is mainly pushing), solar, natural gas etc. What I mainly got is that we need to build a bridge to those new technologies, and in essence have domestic oil hold us over until the new tech is here in a more economically viable way.
So, independently from what you may believe when it comes to AGW, what do you think about Pickens plan, drilling and how much do you think the government should get involved in business and free market?
Additional Details
1 week ago
Also, tell me who of the candidates you believe will solve the energy problems and who (optional) you will vote for.If Barrack Obama can sell me on an energy plan that includes domestic drilling to hold us over until new technologies further develop I will most likely vote for him.
1 week ago
Dana, Upinsmoke, do you think theres a way for domestic oil to play a bigger role until the new technologies become more viable. Because I highly doubt that we%26#039;ll replace 95% of our energy with wind and solar with 10 years, 20 or 30 years might also be stretching it.1 week ago
Bestonne has a point. I find it really hard for wind power and even solar to satiate our needs, even 20%.1 week ago
Forgot about coal.1 week ago
It does seem to me that Obama is just %26quot;pandering%26quot; to 70% of America that wants domestic drilling, but in the end won%26#039;t allow it when president. This whole environmental movement in my opinion is not well educated in terms of economics, practicality, feasibility and seems to want to choke the middle class into accepting new cleaner technologies sooner then is realistically possible. Lets face it, coal, and oil are going to have to play the majority part in solving our energy needs. It is unrealistic to think that wind and solar will be even 20-30% in even 20 years. Clean coal is pretty close to an oxymoron (even with carbon sequestration you still get massive environmental impacts from coal mining). Report Abuse Pretty terrible answer. Wind is dangerous to the environment because one turbine supposedly %26quot;exploded%26quot;? Give me a break. I guess oil is better because it never spills or catches on fire. And environmentalists are the enemies of the environment for supposedly opposing drilling. LOL! Report Abuse* You must be logged into Answers to add comments. Sign in or Register.
Other Answers (5)
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energy independence is a hot button issue that both candidates are dancing around, but both are not going all out to really solve our future energy needs. McCain%26#039;s plan is better than obamas in that it allows for more options, and helps provide time to develop and bring to market real alternative energy. mccain wants to drill for more oil here in america where the oil is, rather than buy it from countries that for the most part don%26#039;t like us. that will buy us time in the short and intermediate terms(through the next 50-100 years). he also wants us to build more nuclear power plants. france gets 80% of their electricity from nuclear power, should we do any less? mccain wants us to use clean coal as well for energy. europe is right now building new coal liquefaction plants to make gasoline and diesel. again why are we not taking advantage of this technology? china is building new coal fired power plants all over their country.
as for obama, he wants alternative energy on the market today despite the fact that there is no infrastructure in place, and that it will cost many trillions of dollars to build the infrastructure. he wants 1 million electric cars on the road in six years, a nice ideal but the people don%26#039;t want cars that have a limited range and long recharge times. personally if someone came out with an electric car that had a 200 mile range and could be recharged in 20-30 minutes, i would buy one. that car would be a feasible mode of transportation in that you could legitimately drive from say LA to new york in about 6 days. obama is currently pandering to those people who want more domestic drilling, but the reality is that he wont allow it to happen. obama wants to put a wind fall profits tax on the oil companies, but then gas prices will go up, which is what he wants. he has said a few times that he thinks that gasoline should be $12 per gallon. obamas energy plan is limited at best.
as for mr pickens, his motives are not as altruistic as he would have you believe. he is spending money to build wind farms so that when congress offers incentives to produce wind power, he will reap those incentives. as stated he also owns large numbers of land tracts that have a large amount on natural gas buried in them. remember he was an oil man at one time, and he knows that crude oil is limited in its supply, and he is reaching for the future so that his family will continue to make money. i have no issue with that, but eh should at least be honest about it.
As for the election, Obama will solve our energy problems, McCain will not. McCain%26#039;s entire solution is drill drill drill and nuclear nuclear nuclear. It takes way too long to build new nuclear power plants and they%26#039;re way too expensive (and oil is not a long-term solution) for that to be a good plan.
Obama has said he%26#039;s willing to compromise on offshore drilling in order to fund renewable energies. Many times McCain has basically said he thinks renewable energy technology is vitually worthless. Frankly, I think he%26#039;s just out of touch with reality.
*edit* No, oil can%26#039;t play a larger role in our energy production. Right now it only accounts for something like 2% of our power production. You want to see gas prices get *really* high? Start using more oil for energy production.
*edit2* I very much disagree with Bestonne on the subject of wind. With regards to solar, there%26#039;s enough solar energy in the Southwest to power all of the USA, using solar thermal or even photovoltaic technology.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/16...
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/sci... -
All that Picken%26#039;s wind farms will do is increase demand for natural gas (since that%26#039;s what is best suited to backing up wind) while fooling people into believing that they don%26#039;t need nuclear (regardless of how long it%26#039;ll take to build the power plants (and a lot of improvement could be made there), there%26#039;s nothing else that can do the job). There%26#039;s also the fact that the best power plants for backing up wind (other than pumped hydro) just so happen to be simple cycle gas plants, converting the back up of wind power to combined cycle and getting rid of the wind turbines would probably reduce CO2 emissions.
Wind probably can%26#039;t even handle 5% of the US power needs (and even a lot of wind proponents are saying 20% is the limit).
It doesn%26#039;t look like either US presidential candidate will solve the problems, at least not with the plans they have (McCain is only proposing a tenth of what is needed) so they%26#039;ll probably end up changing their mind once in power, Obama does seem to be less anti-science than McCain so he%26#039;d be my pick for that reason (but I%26#039;m not a yank so I don%26#039;t get a say in the matter of whether the rest of the world catches cold).