In an effort to garner some much needed attention to the Pickens Plan, Texas energy investor T. Boone Pickens has launched an advertising campaign highlighting the difficulties of the America’s current reliance on Middle Eastern oil. However, in a diversion from his traditional support of wind power, Mr. Pickens heralds natural gas as the energy supply source of the future. According to a New York Times article, Mr. Pickens has been unsuccessful in his attempts to lobby for the adoption of natural gas as the main source of fuel for automobiles. This can be attributed to the costly infrastructure needed relative to new battery-powered hybrids and as well as concerns over shale gas pollution.
Mr. Pickens’ announcement comes amid technological advances that have recently made shale gas extraction possible. There have already been legal disputes in upstate New York over the possible contamination of drinking water by the hydraulic fracturing method of extracting methane from the shale rock.
T. Boone Pickens is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of BP Capital Management, an energy-focused hedge fund manager that was formed in 1996. |
