The Wall Street Journal ran a special section on energy earlier this week. As part of that, they did an interview with T. Boone Pickens. Here is an edited version of that conversation:

WSJ: Is there real concern about our continuing to depend on imported oil?

BOONE: The American people are concerned. I’ve got 1,627,000 people signed up with me, and I do have a great amount of following, and we’ve been running focus groups. There’s no question that the American people hate it that we import so much of our energy. They are concerned about OPEC. I think I have created that concern, that we’re importing five million barrels a day from the enemy. We look stupid doing it.

WSJ: How would using natural gas as a transportation fuel work?
BOONE: We have the largest in natural-gas reserves in the world. Four thousand trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas. J.P. Morgan put out a report the other day of eight thousand trillion, but that is gas in place. And I say we can get 50% of it. We have the technology for that.

The fuel is cheaper; it’s cleaner; it’s abundant; and it’s ours. I mean, we are going to go down in history as the dumbest crowd that ever came along. Don’t try to do 250 million vehicles in America. Just do eight million 18-wheelers.

WSJ: What about the claims that the new recovery techniques damage water supplies?

BOONE: Show me an aquifer that’s been damaged. And you’re talking about the water: 90% of it is recovered and used again. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon, testified before Congress a month ago. He said there have been over a million wells drilled in the last 50 years, and there is no evidence of any aquifer being damaged.

WSJ: Where are you on wind?

BOONE: I’ve got to get a better market than I have now, but I think I will be back just as enthusiastic when that happens. You can’t really get started now because wind is priced off the margin, and the margin is natural gas. So you’re sitting here, gas at $4.50 and you’ve got to have-you can squeeze it at $6, but $7 will make the wind work.

We’ll be installing turbines this year. From Roscoe, Texas, to the Canadian border, that is the best wind area in the world.