In case you missed it, Boone Pickens on 60 minutes last night talking about himself and his plan ..

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Don't forget to tune in to see the Pickens Plan on 60 Minutes this Sunday ..

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Boone Pickens on CNN talks about alternative energy solutions including natural gas ..

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Another story on natural gas drilling in Garrett County ..

and once again, it's in the Baltimore Sun and features quotes from local residents as well a photograph and a map. T. Boone Pickens even gets a mention in the article for helping to cause a "paradigm shift" in the US. I'm still somewhat puzzled that the local papers are seemingly ignoring this story but still it is good to know that someone is out there telling it. In fact, I had not seen this article myself until I noticed an unusually large number of "Garrett County natural gas" Google searches landed on this blog on Sunday.

Here are some comments from local resident Henry Bowser who, like me, is interested in maintaining the rural heritage of Garrett County and hopes these upfront lease payments will allow landowners to hold onto their land and stave off development.

Bowser said many landowners will likely spend the payout on property taxes and land upkeep - to ward off economic hardships that force some to sell to companies developing property around tourist-popular Deep Creek Lake.

"For farmers and people like us who have fairly large tracts of acreage, it's a way to keep the property from being sold and broken up," Bowser said.

"There is so much selling and splitting up of property in this area, with the development around the lake. For the people still trying to keep Garrett County as a rural area, it makes it a lot easier for them to hold on to their property."

For previous postings on this blog about natural gas click here.

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Even more on natural gas which is apparently plentiful in Garrett County ..

Aubrey McClendon of Chesapeake Energy Corporation is joining with the PickensPlan to promote natural gas as a transportation fuel and help reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Learn more at cngNow.com. I think you have to admit that their message, i.e. keeping dollars here by using our own resources instead of relying on others, makes a lot of sense even if you don't completely agree with the entirety of the plan.

Full disclosure: given all that I am reading and that natural gas is a North American resource that can help supply us with the energy we need I plan to purchase a small stake in this business. Some people would call that practicing what you preach, but I see it as something that can improve our future and I can buy a piece of right now. The risk of course is what happens to natural gas prices (and their profits) when all these new sources of supply are opened up and it is not widely adopted as a transport fuel? That's why I'll buy a small stake now (at nearly 50% less than it was selling for earlier this year) and add to if the opportunity presents itself later. To borrow a line from real estate agents though - they're not making anymore natural gas - at least not on the human time scale.

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Speaking of natural gas ..

if you are up late this evening check out T. Boone Pickens on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Pickens will have a tough act to follow though as Matthew McConaughey is the headline guest this evening, presumably wearing a shirt too which in itself would be news.

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Another interesting ad urging us to take back our energy future ..

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New Pickens ad suggests we take back our energy future ..

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"Wind power: A reality check" ..

Another piece from CNNMoney.com discussing the pros and cons of some of the ideas being put forth by Boone Pickens and Al Gore for example. The author seems to agree with Joe Lieberman in that while optimistic the Pickens Plan is not completely far fetched. Here's to more "can-do optimism" from all Americans.

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Pickens testifies before Congress on plan to curb dependence on foreign oil ..

See the full story from CNNMoney.com on Yahoo! Finance. A few select quotes:

"Our country is in a deep hole and it's time to stop digging," said Pickens, founder and principal of BP Capital, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the committee's chairman, praised Pickens' plan, calling it a "classically American message of can-do optimism."

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Update: The Pickens Plan ..

Earlier this week, I commented on oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens launching an effort to promote wind energy development and natural gas as a transportation fuel. At the time, I did not realize the magnitude of the scale of his plan or the lengths to which he was willing to go to spread the message. If you've been watching television at all over the past two days you may have seen one of his commercials. He also has a fully functioning website up and running to further detail his plan. An overview of which can be seen in this video (also embedded below).

Maybe he's gone senile at the age of 80 or maybe he has a point that we can't continue to ship our wealth overseas and leave our children and grandchildren nothing but the debts of their greedy ancestors. I'm sure the "it will never work" (and especially not in my backyard) crowd will be out in full force though, just as they were when gasoline first powered the automobile.

A new source of power... called gasoline has been produced by a Boston engineer. Instead of burning the fuel under a boiler, it is exploded inside the cylinder of an engine.
The dangers are obvious. Stores of gasoline in the hands of people interested primarily in profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. Horseless carriages propelled by gasoline might attain speeds of 14 or even 20 miles per hour. The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action even if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming... [T]he cost of producing [gasoline] is far beyond the financial capacity of private industry... In addition the development of this new power may displace the use of horses, which would wreck our agriculture.

- U. S. Congressional Record, 1875.

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"Oil billionaire Pickens puts his money on wind power" ...

Read the full story from CNN.com.

It should also be noted that Pickens' companies have been investing heavily in wind energy and natural gas as a transportation fuel so he does have something to gain here, but it is telling that he appears to be a "reformed" oilman. Last year on a trip to China he was quoted as saying something to the effect that if the Olympic 100m dash was run on that day it would have been a relay race because no one could have run 100m in polluted air of that poor quality.

It's certainly an ambitious plan that should raise a lot of eyebrows across the country and world, not to mention Garrett County.

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