Can you give us the names of the "hundreds" ?
And Pickens "reward" was challenged, but he typically renigged.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/t-boone-pickens-says-no-deal/

Didn't you read the book "Unfit For Duty"?

Exactly, just as I alluded to in the original post.

Shell already has several of these plants operating. Far easier and cheaper to store and transport liquid diesel/gasoline than LNG.

Instead of building Palin's natural gas pipeline from the North Slope, why not instead just build one or two GTL plants, and pump the converted liquid fuel south thru the existing pipeline?

__________________
Just say "NO" to Ethanol - Drive Diesel

Mitchell Oates
Mooresville, NC
'87 300D 212K miles
'87 300D 151K miles - R.I.P. 12/08
'05 Jeep Liberty CRD 67K miles
Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club

Was that about Dubya?

You didn't read it?

Nope.
I knew Dubya was unfit for duty.

Another typical Attwater-Rove tactic - fab a lie and hammer away until the weak minded tea party types buy into it--Ann Richards is a coke head, juvenile crime is up..yada yada

Pickens grew up not far from where I live. There are a lot of old timers around here that grew up with him and know him well.

When you bring up his name they just sort of change the subject.

From a financial standpoint two things were wrong with his numbers. Natural Gas had to be at $9 for it to work. It is currently about $5 or maybe $6.

The state of Texas is going to spend $5,000,000,000 on new transmission lines but none of them are planned to run into the Pampa area since there is neither the demand nor the production to justify it.

The entire project hinged on two factors and neither of them came to pass.

In 2008 a group of Vets that had served with Kerry sent Pickens a 12 page letter and 42 pages of documents that showed much of the information put out by the Swift Boat Vets for Truth was in fact not truthful.

Pickens just dismissed the facts presented to him and said he chose not to accept their documentation.

So much for the million dollar offer!

Here's the version with an actual source, compliments of Chas H

"T. Boone Pickens Says No Deal on Swift Boat Bounty
By KATE ZERNIKE
T. Boone Pickens is not giving up his million dollars.
That’s how much he had offered to pay anyone who could disprove any of the accusations the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made against Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election – attacks Mr. Pickens, the billionaire Texas oilman, helped finance.
A group of Swift boat veterans sympathetic to Mr. Kerry sent Mr. Pickens a letter last week taking him up on the challenge. In 12 pages, plus a 42-page attachment of military records and other documents, they identified not just one but ten lies in the group’s campaign against Mr. Kerry. They offered to meet with him to provide Mr. Kerry’s journals and videotapes from Vietnam and a copy of his full military record certified by the Navy – a key demand of Mr. Pickens and veterans who believe Mr. Kerry lied about his service to win his military decorations.
Mr. Pickens replied with a one-page letter, thanking the veterans for their research and their service, but politely saying there had been a misunderstanding. “Key aspects of my offer of $1 million have not been accurately reported,” he wrote.

When he offered the reward at an American Spectator dinner in November, blogs sympathetic to Mr. Pickens reported that he challenged anyone to disprove “anything” the Swift boat group said.
In his letter, Mr. Pickens explained that his bet actually applied to only the television ads the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth bought, and not to their bestselling book or the media interviews that generated more attention than the ads themselves.
“In reviewing your material, none of the information you provide speaks specifically to the issues contained in the ads,” he wrote, “and, as a result, does not qualify for the $1 million.”
It was pretty much the same response he had given to Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, who seized the challenge immediately after Mr. Pickens made it last year.
He offered more generous compliments in his letter to the veterans, and suggested that they take up their issues with John O’Neill, the founder of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. (Mr. O’Neill, who first debated Mr. Kerry about the war in Vietnam on the Dick Cavett show in 1971, does not cede anything.)
As for this this presidential cycle, Mr. Pickens says he will not give any money to partisan causes."

It does not appear that either Kerry or the sympathetic vets mentioned, have ever disputed this published version of events.

On the alternative energy topic, I was reading the current Wired magazine article by Mark Gunther about what's wrong with wind power in the US. It was an interesting read, a call for government to get past the NIMBY and infrastructure issues (transmission lines) in the same manner that got the interstate highways built.

The US is building generating capacity in places that don't need the electricity. Most wind farms are located in rural areas, where there's plenty of land and a pragmatic attitude that welcomes wind turbines as a fresh "cash crop."

Craig is absolutely correct, higher energy prices are the way to conservation or alternative fuels, but no one in government has the fortitude to do it. Were this done partially through taxation (as the western European countries do), the revenue could offset other taxes.

Billybob, the benefit of more expensive energy prices is that we become more efficient, and eventually arrive at the same energy cost.

As far as Picken's NG plans go, they have some merit, as they could be feasible for captive fleets that would have access to a fueling station every day. As far as converting the entire fleet, I see a number of obstacles. First, we have to have a dedicated NG engine. Second, there will have to be a massive NG infrastructure built, as the big rig that can go 1000-1500 miles on a fill-up will be a thing of the past. Picture fueling stations all over the place, and I'm not even talking about the time required to refill a NG vehicle as opposed to replienishing a tank of diesel fuel. Third, there is no longer any environmental benefit to NG over clean diesel- the diesel is actually cleaner in some categories. Fourth, I haven't heard anyone mention the bridge and tunnel restrictions imposed on NG and propane vehicles. This NG idea sounds like Arnie's "Hydrogen Highway", a pie in the sky idea that most of us will never live long enough to see, not because we're old, but because it's bad science.

That is correct. We pretty much agree that Pickens made an offer, then backed out of it.

http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/FINALPICKENSLETTERFROMCREW.pdf

Doug Reese

It appears that there is some dispute regarding the exact nature and extent of the "offer" in question, and there does not appear to have been any follow-up to disprove what Pickens says the "offer" actually entailed, nor any claim that the substance of the TV ads has been repudiated, how can it now be claimed that an "offer" Pickens claims was not made has been "backed out of it"?

Have the challengers to Pickens not been able to document the exact nature and extent of "offer" first hand, or have the challengers not been able to repudiate the TV advertising that is the nexus of the "offer" as Pickens claimed.

I completely respect and understand anyone wanting their version of events to be known. Whether or not Pickens has "backed out of" an "offer" that was real or an "offer" that was imagined seems to remain unanswered so far.