Pickens Plan: Potential Risks

T. Boon Pickens along with other humanitarians believe there is a need to lower our dependency on foreign oils due to several variables including price, availability, and concerns of pollution to our environment. Pickens created a vision towards a transition to natural gas known as the "Pickens Plan” that incorporates a solution to the energy crisis America could suffer from. He promotes natural gas as more domestically abundant, cleaner fuel source that decreases the amount of foreign imports. Pickens uses ethos, pathos, and logos in his campaign to convince his audience that natural gas is a sufficient alternative energy source but does his inability to present consequences of a mass energy transition take away from his credibility?

T. Boon Pickens appeals to ethos by presenting opportunity for jobs and gives credible information pertaining to cost of importing foreign oils.  He uses staggering statistics showing that the amount of imported oil has more than doubled since 1970. “Pickens Plan” is estimated to create millions of new jobs and Pickens uses business ethics to persuade his audience that the economy can benefit from a transition from oil to natural gas. However, Thomas Grose, author of an article in US News and World Report, says that obtaining domestic natural gas “ would include tapping unconventional sources, mainly from shale, and mining gas beneath the ocean along the continental shelf.” Some people are scarred that a pipeline in Alaskan fields could cause damage to the Artic permafrost. Another risk that comes with this transition is the potential for costly price to mine the gas. Pickens loses credibility with his audience because of his inability to present potential risks from mining for natural gas.

The “Pickens Plan” presents a cleaner alternative to oil. A transition would mean less carbon dioxide emissions entering our atmosphere from cars and factories. This is one way Pickens appeals to pathos considering the conservation of the world we live in is something we all have a concern for. The alternative fuel sources we would be utilizing are much more friendly to the environment considering natural gas emissions are much less than oil. Solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy release no emissions and are renewable sources of energy. All of these components persuade Pickens audience that transition to these energy sources are beneficial to our environment but Pickens doesn’t address that switching to natural gas may be more difficult and costly than he makes it seem. Grose estimates that it would cost billions of dollars to switch gas stations from oil to natural gas. Pickens fails to address that it costs ten to twenty thousand dollars to reconfigure your car to be capable of running on natural gas and only a handful of cars are able to do it at all. This doesn’t seem like the type of plan that will get or economy out of debt quickly or effectively. When people are presented these facts, it makes “Pickens Plan” seem unviable.

Pickens has logical and practical ideas of why America needs a transition to an alternative fuel source but he is incapable of presenting large risks that the “Pickens Plan” presents. Yes, it seems illogical to spend billions of dollars on imported oil but we have set up an infrastructure around it as our primary energy source and I fear transition wouldn’t go as smoothly as Pickens might have hoped. I believe it would be smarter to utilize the Worlds oil while we continue to create the technology for cheaper, and more renewable energy sources.