Quote:
Originally Posted by t walgamuth
Just because he was planning to make money from it does not necessarily mean it is a bad thing for the country. 
What I detest is when folks manipulate or deceive to make money.....like in the whole sub prime fiasco.....or the price manipulation done regularly by the oil companies. |
Agreed, if all he was looking at was making an honest profit. But in Pickens case, I think he had your second line at least partly in mind - he all but said the only way it would have been profitable for him was to receive government subsidies - our tax money - to prop it up, and via carbon crdeits/cap and trade to artifically jack up the price of other forms of energy, so his business would be competitive.
In other words, his entire business plan hinged on having the government rig the market in his favor, and sticking his hand in the public till. When cap and trade stalled out, and it became clear he would have to risk HIS money to set this up instead of the taxpayer's, he dropped it like a hot potato.
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of wind power. But old T. Boone wasn't trying to make an honest profit off a new business venture - IMHO he was trying to run a scam on the whole country.
I went on the website and forum for the Pickens plan back when it was first set up. I offered a simpler alternative to the second part of his plan. Instead of converting millions of vehicles to run off of straight natural gas - or requiring people to buy new vehicles that could - and spending billions to create an entirely new fueling infrastructure across the country - why not build several Fischer-Tropp style plants to convert the natural gas into synthetic liquid diesel and gasoline, for which the infrastructure was already in place and could immediately be used by the vehicles already on the road? I was basically invited to go elsewhere.