Even T. Boone Pickens prefers alternative energy to more drilling [View All]

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Oil billionaire Pickens puts his money on wind power


(CNN) -- Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his clout behind renewable energy sources like wind power. The legendary entrepreneur and philanthropist on Tuesday unveiled a new energy plan he says will decrease the United States' dependency on foreign oil by more than one-third and help shift American energy production toward renewable natural resources.

"The Pickens Plan" calls for investing in domestic renewable resources such as wind, and switching from oil to natural gas as a transportation fuel. In a news conference outlining his proposal, Pickens said his impetus for the plan is the country's dangerous reliance on foreign oil.

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Pickens' company, Mesa Power, recently announced a $2 billion investment as the first step in a multibillion-dollar plan to build the world's largest wind farm in Pampa, Texas. Pickens said Tuesday that if the United States takes advantage of the so-called "wind corridor," stretching from the Canadian border to West Texas, energy from wind turbines built there could supply 20 percent or more of the nation's power. He suggested the project could be funded by private investors.

Power from thousands of wind turbines that would line the corridor could be distributed throughout the country via electric power transmission lines and could fuel power plants in large population hubs, the oil baron said. Fueling these plants with wind power would then free up the natural gas historically used to power them, and would mean that natural gas could replace foreign oil as fuel for motor vehicles, he said. Using natural gas for transportation needs could replace one-third of the United States' imported oil and would save more than $230 billion a year, Pickens said.

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/07/08/pickens.plan/index.html