Boone Pickens Hits Bottom, Bounces Back, Rings Oil Alarm

…Having established his credentials, Pickens moves on to his management tips — “help, don’t hinder” — and a blunt summary of why we need to accept that the world is running out of oil.

“The Saudis claim they have 260 billion barrels in reserve,” he writes. “I don’t believe them.”


What’s the U.S. to do? For starters, use natural gas for transport: It’s “clean, cheap and domestic,” he says. It’s also the backbone of a transport-fueling company Pickens founded, Clean Energy Fuels Corp.

Pickens is placing a bet on wind power, too, with his company Mesa Power LP. Wind energy is big in the blustery Texas Panhandle, even if Pickens himself doesn’t want any wind turbines on his 68,000-acre ranch there.

Above all, Pickens says, the U.S. needs an overarching energy plan that draws on all its domestic resources: “coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar, as well as our limited oil reserves.” The stakes are clear, he says:

“It’s time to declare war on a crisis that threatens the very security of America by sending $1 trillion overseas each year, enriching our enemies, downgrading our global status and pushing our already fragile financial condition toward almost certain meltdown.”

Bloomberg