One thing that you’ve brought up is that the Pickens Plan not only makes sense given our resources, but the timing couldn’t be better.
That’s right. I believe that the Pickens Plan can really help jump start our economy and get us out of the economic slump that we’re in through reduction of that huge transfer of wealth that goes to foreign nations as we decrease our dependence on foreign oil as well.
And thanks to infrastructure projects, the Pickens Plan will also mean new jobs: building transmission lines for wind power, building the appropriate CNG stations for compressed natural gas run vehicles, building biomass plants. So we’re doing everything we can to help out in Oklahoma.
Give us an example.
We are in the process of encouraging, facilitating and incentivising the development of the all-important transmission lines—the grid —to get power from the remote areas of the state into the urban areas that use the power. This is one of the many places where Oklahoma is really exactly in line with the Pickens Plan.
Oklahoma is making a full-scale effort to develop its alternative energy industries.
We are. A couple of years ago at my request, we created the Oklahoma Bioenergy Center, which is a consortium of researchers from both the public sector from Oklahoma State University, Boone’s alma mater, as well as the University of Oklahoma, my alma mater, and the private Noble Foundation. Of course the Noble Foundation has led the world in plant genomics and the engineering of plant genes. So it’s a perfect partnership and collaboration. Right now they are focusing on developing a renewable clean biofuel made from perennial grasses like switchgrass, which doesn’t compete for human or animal feed.
That’s been one of the major beefs about corn ethanol.
Right. Corn ethanol is certainly problematic because it competes for food sources for both humans and our domestic livestock. So Oklahoma has really taken the lead in the research and development of biofuels.
What about wind?
Oklahoma is perfectly situated along this wind corridor that Boone refers to as the Saudi Arabia of wind. This corridor runs from Texas up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and into Canada. And we’re perfectly situated to take advantage of that. If you look at the climatological reports, Oklahoma has as much wind as anybody. Out in the Panhandle, we have an average wind of 13 miles an hour each day.
What an untapped resource.
That’s right: an average wind speed of 13 miles per hour day and night. We understand that we’ve got to do something to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. That it’s critically important for national security purposes as well as protection of the environment, economic development, and the future prosperity of our economy.
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE