“The distinction between renewable and non-renewable resources is tenuous and perhaps in the last analysis untenable.”
– M. A. Adelman, The Economics of Petroleum Supply (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1993), p. 66.
“The tradition in academic energy economics is to stress the ability to overcome depletion threats.”
– Richard Gordon, The Energy Journal, (Vol. 22: No. 2), 2001, p. 128.
The headline from the May 15th Time article reads: “The IEA Says Peak Oil Is Dead. That’s Bad News for Climate Policy.” Author Bryan Walsh begins:
…No one … was really looking forward to a peak-oil world…. Think uncomfortable and violent. Oil is in nearly every modern product we use, and it’s still what gets us from point A to point B—especially if you need to get from A to B in a plane.
“[A]s my father liked to tell me, ‘Son, a fool with a plan can beat a genius with no plan any day.’ Right now, when it comes to America and our effort to achieve greater energy security, we’re a foolish nation without a plan.
If it were up to me, America’s energy plan would have ….”
– T. Boone Pickens, “Leadership Absent on Energy Plan,” Omaha World-Herald, May 1, 2013.
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine the can design.”
– F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), p. 76.
T. Boone Pickens, the author and marketer of three national energy plans (see yesterday’s post), is a “man of system,” to use Adam Smith’s phrase from the mid-18th century.…
When it comes to energy, T. Boone Pickens esteems government planning. When asked about President Obama’s recent proposal for an Energy Security Trust, Pickens responded:
That starts to talk about a plan. He’s going to fund something to start something…. Make a plan … and do something different.
And low and behold, Pickens is crusading with yet another energy plan, his third in the last six years. As before, his animus is against Big Oil (see Appendix) and his fondness for personal dollars.
Pickens Plan III proposes that the federal government sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to jump-start the costly transition from oil to natural gas to fuel transportation. We don’t know the details yet, but T. Boone in March began pushing his new plan in the national media and local press.…