Here’s a thought provoking video that illustrates the ripple effect from oil across the world’s economy.

Where do we go from here?

If you’ve seen T. Boone Pickens plan that he laid out earlier this week, then you have to be excited that he’s doing something to promote more alternative energy, specifically wind power, so we’re not dependent on foreign oil.

I’ve been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.

Pickens want’s to replace the 22% of energy that we use natural gas in our overall energy consumption and replace it with wind power. Pickens is already planning the world’s largest wind farm in Pampa, TX. Wind energy could supply 20 percent or more of the nation’s power.

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.

As many people know, T. Boone Pickens has made his fortune in the oil and gas industry. He still has it in his best interest to sell oil and gas. This is why he wants to take the 22% of natural gas that would be removed out of the overall energy consumption and put it into transportation fuel. This is where his plan is wrong.

We do not want to replace one non-sustainable energy source with another. If we did, we would eventually have the same problems with natural gas that we have with oil today. Even though natural gas is less expensive than gasoline or diesel now, there would be a rise in demand pushing prices higher and we would be still incur times of shortages, price spikes, and all the other forces of economics.

From the Pickens website about the plan:

According to the California Energy Commission, critical greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline.

That’s still not good enough. With more vehicles on the road every year, we need vehicles that are emissions free.

To put his plan in place, we would have to overhaul the infrastructure at gas stations so they could supply natural gas to vehicles. At this large of an expense and time, it would be much more wise to replace the pumps with electric outlets designed for electric cars to recharge.

I admire T. Boone Pickens and what he has done throughout his life. I appreciate how he is trying to position himself as “the man” to go through for anything in regards to energy and he has invested millions of dollars into alternative energy. It’s capitalism at it’s best, and I love it. But his plan to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is not the best one, but it’s getting people to talk about the issues and I think that’s great.

What we need to do is take the best part of his plan, which is building the wind farms to produce electricity for the overall energy consumption, and restructure the natural gas plan on how to build an infrastructure to provide electricity for plug in hybrids and electric vehicles. Since wind can only produce so much energy, we would need to get this extra energy for the vehicles from other alternative sources such as solar energy.

Pickens Plan

Bush urged congress to lift the offshore drilling ban that has been in effect since 1981 in his four point plan to reduce oil prices. Most people believe that there would be no immediate impact on oil prices.

Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for president, opposes lifting the ban on offshore drilling and says that allowing exploration now wouldn’t affect gasoline prices for at least five years.

But what happens in five years? If we haven’t done something, then we will have to wait another five before anything CAN happen. If we don’t do anything NOW, we will just continue to see oil prices rise. Something has to be done!

I do believe that it would have an immediate impact. One of the reasons why oil prices are so high right now is because of the speculators. If news came out that we were going to open up offshore drilling or even ANWR, from a psychological point of view, prices would start to drop because the speculators would have to start selling off their position because they know the prices wouldn’t be able to go much higher. I think we would start to see a decrease within weeks of an announcement.

Now at the same time, if they were to open up offshore rilling or ANWR, the environmental groups would need to be involved. I want to make sure the companies that are drilling are doing so responsibly! They can do it, it just has to be done right.

Something I wish I would have heard of more in the press conference was the integration of energy alternatives.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told FOX News on Wednesday that while the country moves to energy alternatives, like battery-operated cars, fuel supply has to be increased somehow.

I want to see more mandates on the auto companies to produce a certain amount of flex fuel, battery-operated, or another form of alternative energy vehicles so we can start to see our dependence on oil reduced.

So, open up these areas for drilling will have an immediate psychological effect on people, a promise of new oil, and bring oil prices down while the speculators exit their positions. Then, start rolling out a plan to introduce more efficient vehicles into the market. This is the path to reduce our dependence on foreign oil!

Offshore Drilling Ban

I checked out John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s energy policies and the only conclusion I can come up with for choosing a president is, it doesn’t really matter.

Sarah Lozanova has already completed a great analysis on both McCain’s energy policies and Obama’s energy policies and what they plan to do in office. There is nothing that I can say to add to her analysis so check out the links and you can decide for yourself. You can also review Reuters’ energy breakdown of both candidates.

I think both plans seem reasonable and valid, but the issue I have is which candidate will actually execute on their plan? It’s too easy for a candidate to promise one thing and when actually in office chose to do things differently.

I’m going to look more into each of these candidates and see where they not only voted in favor of alternative energy plans and energy efficiency technologies, but followed through with some actions. Not only that, I’m also going to look at other issues in which they voted one way and see if they created any actions to support the decision that they made.

I want a president that follows through on what they say their going to do!

If you have any references or info that can support or go against either of the candidates, please post them in the comments or email it over to me. I want to complete an investigation of each of the candidates and which one will better support alternative energy for our future.

Obama versus McCain breakdown

The Group of Eight developed member nations plus China, India, and South Korea met in Aomori, Japan to talk amid issues, with the biggest being the high oil prices.

They agreed to promote energy efficiency for stable market

The ministers believed that energy saving and efficiency is one of the quickest, greenest, and most cost-effective way to address energy security, climate change, and ensuring economic growth, according to the declaration.

This just seems to state the obvious. We had oil prices skyrocket in the 70’s, and since they weren’t more proactive over the years, we’ve seen oil prices skyrocket again. The ministers also stated that they will enhance cooperation and exchange information on environment-friendly technologies for united efforts over cut in oil demands and emissions.

Everyone knows that developing energy efficiency and technology is the only way that we are going to be able to stabilize the energy prices back to an affordable level, but until they actually do something, they aren’t doing anything but blowing smoke up our…

They called for oil production boost

We affirm the need to maximise investment in our own domestic production and we call on other oil producing countries to increase investment to keep markets well supplied in response to rising world demand,” the joint statement said on Sunday.

And in the same breathe that they want to increase energy efficiency and improve alternative energy sources, the G8 called for an immediate increase in oil production in view of rising fuel prices. This is largely due to the fact that the 11 countries that were in attendance consume nearly two-thirds of the world’s energy. Of course they’re going to want OPEC to increase production. It is those countries that are hurting the most because of high oil prices.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said no new decision will be made until its meeting in Vienna in 9 September. I don’t blame OPEC for saying this. Why would they want to increase production? They’re reaping the benefit of the world’s dependency on oil at the moment and taking full advantage of it. I don’t think it would even matter if they increased production, because we’re still going to use more. It’s the way the trend has always been.

They fear that soaring oil prices could damage the global economy

Japan urged consumer-nations to use less energy and warned that soaring oil prices could trigger a global recession.

Since we know that they will not be able to move fast enough to bring down the cost of oil, develop more efficient technologies, or find a readily available alternative energy source, this quote should read “Japan urged consumer-nations to use less energy and warned that soaring oil prices WILL trigger a global recession”. Also, they still aren’t in agreement on which countries need to reduce energy subsidies.

Since the G8 didn’t come up with anything that can lessen the impact of high oil prices at the moment, I think things will get worse before they get better. I can only hope that it passes by quickly. If the G8 can execute on the things that they agreed upon in their deceleration, we may not have to have another energy crisis in 30 years. However, if they fail, we will be right back where we started.