In 2008, T. Boone Pickens unveiled the Pickens Plan, a blueprint to reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign oil. It called for increasing wind power to generate 20 percent of our nation’s electricity and free up domestic natural gas to be used as an alternative to gasoline and diesel. Pickens, who is also the largest shareholder of Clean Energy, will discuss his plan Sept. 27 as part of the Town Hall of Cleveland lecture series. His visit comes as the city hopes to become home to the nation’s first freshwater wind farm. — Ryan Dezember

1 Wind power advocates here hope a market for turbines might prompt manufacturers to come. Is that a pattern you've seen?
You've got a problem because these people are not moving into what you would think is an advantageous position, because they’re not sure how much help they’re going to get from the government. ... Over a long period of time I don’t think there’s going to be any question that you’re going to go to renewables for a great part of your power generation, but be careful — it may not come as fast as you think.

2 What’s the first thing the government needs to do to move in the direction of your plan and President Obama’s pledge to eliminate Middle Eastern oil imports by 2018?
The solution is by executive order he would say all federal vehicles in the future will have to use domestic fuel. We’ve got resources. When we’re talking about cutting down on oil from OPEC, what resources do you have to do it? ... You can’t attack that problem with wind. You have to do it with natural gas where you have an abundance of natural gas, and it’s cheap.

3 Assuming we shift to renewables and domestic fuels, how can the Rust Belt use its manufacturing base to be part of that.
Something that would be very encouraging is to come up with a battery. If we really do develop a battery, then you’ve got power that can be generated by wind and solar that could get back to charging vehicles. But that’s a long way off. What we don’t want to do is get dependent on a Chinese battery in place of Saudi oil. We need to develop our own battery.

Visit townhallofcleveland.org for more info.

- NEONow

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