T. Boone Pickens’ kicked off a “virtual march” on Washington, D.C. today, organizing the collective power of over 4.5 million people to flood Congress with e-mails, calls and faxes in support of clean energy.

The virtual march will wrap up on Friday, but between now and then, march organizers are mobilizing Pickens’ New Energy Army to voice support for the Pickens Plan, including a bill introduced just today into the House of Representatives called the NAT GAS Act.

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Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Ho is most famous in business for his vast and infamous casino empire and unofficial title as one of Asia’s richest people (his estimated US$8 billion net worth earned him the 113th rank in Forbes’ 2007 list of “the World’s Billionaires”). Might news of his recent clean energy joint venture with Portugal’s top power company bring him a new title: “the Chinese T. Boone Pickens“?

According to Macauhub, a government-sponsored news publication-cum-commerce division that reports business-related news in the Pearl River region and in Portugese-speaking countries, Ho has created a renewable energy partner firm with Portugal’s Energias de Portugal (EDP), which will be known as EDP-Energy Solutions Asia.

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According to the latest proposal, a “Car Czar” would be appointed to oversee the rescue. It’s unclear how this “Czar” could be more effective than a U.S. trustee appointed by a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy judge. A trustee might be more likely to be free of special interest and partisan bickering. There are strong special interests in the Congress over the automotive industry.

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After eight long years there is finally a cause for hope here in the United States. George Bush may still be in office, but right now all America’s problems are President-Elect Obama’s to solve (see Obama Recession, thanks Rush), but he seems ready for them.

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Stewart asked Pickens how we get there and what exactly we should do as voters, constituents, activists, consumers to do it. Pickens said what we haven’t had in the past and what we need is strong leadership. And although he made no mention of the recent news that the credit squeeze had cramped the Pickens Plan, he seemed hopeful that the future of his plan was in good hands with the pending change in administration. Watch it:

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The first time I heard about Palin’s proposed $40 billion Alaska natural gas pipeline was not when she asked the Wasilla Assembly of God to pray for it, but it was during the October 2, 2008 vice presidential debate:

We’re building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America’s largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever, to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.

Today, Palin mentioned the natural gas pipeline again in her energy policy speech given in Toledo, Ohio touting the project as proof she is an energy reformer:

We introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept some of them had forgotten — free-market competition. They had a monopoly on power and resources, and we broke it. The result is, finally, progress on the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history — a nearly forty-billion dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.

When the last section is laid and its valves are opened, that pipeline will lead America one step farther away from reliance on foreign energy.  That pipeline will be a lifeline — freeing us from debt, dependence and the influence of foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.

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Move over, T. Boone Pickens. You’re about to be overshadowed by Babcock and Brown.

Australian developer Babcock and Brown has announced that it is working on a 79.5 MW wind farm in the Texas Panhandle— but the company has much larger ambitions than a single farm. Majestic Wind Farm is only one part of a $1 billion effort company to build 567.5 MW of wind power throughout Texas, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. But there’s more.

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Some may question Pickens’ motivations and his methods of doing business with the Pickens Plan. I admit I could learn more about those aspects of Pickens. But as I do so, I’m writing now of my early impressions of the man, and why I am glad to see his face on T.V.

Nothing is more precious to general America than money. So money, profits, wealth accumulation, etc. has to be part of the process of converting people from any one way of life to any other way of life. Sense and science just aren’t enough for a significant, influential, voting portion of the public.

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You wouldn’t necessarily expect Bill Clinton and the Democratic party to have very much in common with oilman and 2004 “Swift Boat” funder T. Boone Pickens (who helped finance the ads that slighted John Kerry’s service in Vietnam during the last presidential election), but these are strange times we live in.

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Unfortunately, I fear that slap won’t register properly with enough people in the status quo, those who cling to oil and more oil as if it’s the only way forward.

During a commercial break from MSNBC’s coverage of the final night of the Democratic National Convention held in Denver, the American Petroleum Institute, the trade organization for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry, ran a spot touting domestic oil and gas reserves that Democrats are keeping us Americans from reaching.

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New York City is famous for many things, but wind power generation is not one of them—yet. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke yesterday at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas about his renewable energy policy proposal for the city.

Bloomberg expressed interest in off-shore wind farms, small-scale wind installations, and and tidal power systems, noting that some estimates predict that wind energy could supply 10 percent of the city’s energy needs within 10 years.

Of course, there are barriers to Bloomberg’s proposal. Many people complain about the unattractiveness of wind turbines, and these complaints certainly can’t be ignored in such a densely populated city. And at least one study claims that urban rooftop windmills are actually net carbon emitters.

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The issue of alternative fuels came up for McCain Thursday as well, during a forum at the Aspen Institute. In the past, McCain has said that he opposes tax breaks for wind and solar development because they interfere with the market. Asked about that Thursday, McCain said he has a long record of support for alternative fuels. Asked specifically if he was for renewing tax breaks for wind and solar that expire this year, he surprisingly said, “of course.”

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Pickens’ company, Mesa Water, bought more than 200,000 acres of ground water rights in Roberts County, Texas. Estimating that he could make more than $1 billion off of the $75 million investment over the next few decades, Pickens wants to drain the Ogallala Aquifer to meet the demand for water in west Texas.

This video from Zaproot, The Truth About the Pickens Plan, is very entertaining and does a great job of explaining the slight of hand trick that Pickens seems to be playing with wind, water and the dreaded emminent domain.

Happy viewing!

For Related Post on T. Boone Pickens:

• T. Boone Pickens Knows Energy and So Does George Chapman
• Picken’s Plan Spins the Wind Turbine
• Pickens Says Peak Oil Reached
• Who Does Rainwater Belong to?

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens has received a glut of media attention recently for his plan to develop the largest wind power project in the world. Now the New York Times suggests that Pickens might have a visionary counterpart in Shai Agassi, an Israeli software entrepreneur obsessed with making Israel the world leader in electric cars.

Agassi, along with his company Better Place, have an Israeli government-backed plan to create an electric car program that will give subscribers access to a car, a battery, and outlets across Israel. Subscribers will also be able to swap dead batteries for fresh ones in designated garages.

Better Place will run the smart grid that charges the electric cars. The company is also currently contracting for enough solar energy energy to power the whole fleet, which will roll out next year with 500 cars built by Renault.

But Agassi’s vision doesn’t end with Israeli electric cars.

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T. Boone Pickens helps bring wind energy to the center of the energy discussion and the center of the political aisle.

Misguided Probing
I don’t think it made the 3 minute clip CBS aired, but in the full 12 minute interview Katie Couric instantly goes after T. Boone Pickens about his financial aspirations of starting a wind farm. Now I’m no big T. Boone Pickens fan, but Katie, people start companies to make money (and tycoons usually start businesses to make billions). As much as you can fault the man for funding the swiftboat attack ads against John Kerry, or fault him for his influence on the Republican Party, you can’t fault the man for starting a business and wanting to make money.

I think Katie is trying to get T. Boone to say what everyone already knows (so why even waste time probing for a confession?) which is, T. Boone Pickens doesn’t care about the environment or the economic revival of rural economies as the well laid out spinning on his Pickens Plan website would like you to believe.

T. Boone Pickens cares about money–and he’s good at making it.

So why then, poke and prod a man who will put his tycoon-ish master mind to work on an energy source that will benefit the nation environmentally and economically?
Katie should’ve poked and prodded T. Boone for what was curiously left out of the Pickens Plan.

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