T. Boone Pickens

[MSimon]

Fission nuclear is hardly impossible, just politically unpalatable for people who think Homer Simpson actually runs a nuke plant.

I love nuclear, but in politics perception IS reality. Opponents have made fission nuclear economically unviable in this country. The laws of economics are almost as certain as the laws of physics.

David

If electrical supplies become erratic all that perception will go into the dustbin.

Just like no one cared about the green anti-oil agenda until gasoline hit $4 a gallon.

[ravingdave]

Well, except for the plants we already have in operation, right? Or are those currently unprofitable? I find that hard to believe.

You're just saying that it's politically difficult to build new ones, right? Mostly because of the NIMBY problem, yes?

I think that fission is a good bridge to fusion, given that fusion could then be used to eliminate the fission by-products. But, depending on how close we really are to fusion, it may be too late to worrry about.

Mike

Yes, that's my point. Building a new anything (electric plant, refinery, etc.) is virtually impossible nowadays, entirely because there is so much political opposition. Clean fusion might change the equation, especially with the demand so great currently.


David

[ravingdave]

Once you get into the billionaires club, it gets harder and harder to find things that you can put your money into ( apart from nutball schemes) that won't make money. Of course William Buffet, Ted Turner and Bill Gates are people who have managed to accomplish this.

I think you mean Warren Buffett. Turner took a family business and parlayed it into a much larger fortune in broadcasting. Gates started a software company that became worth billions.

Yes, Warren Buffet. Sorry, memory lapse.

My understanding is that Ted Turner is giving or has given a billion dollars to the United Nations. (in my opinion the most incompetent organization ever created)

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are funding the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, and I believe they are putting their money into the typical nonsense that today passes for conventional wisdom.


In my opinion, none of this money is ever likely to do anything useful, (for humanity that is. It will do wonders for the paychecks of those people who are in charge of disbursing it. ) but on the bright side at least it isn't likely to make things too much worse.

Noblesse oblige ! ha ha ha...

David

[MSimon]

T. Boone has bought a license to steal from Texas government.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,395304,00.html

He is as dirty as they come.

[ravingdave]

T. Boone has bought a license to steal from Texas government.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,395304,00.html

He is as dirty as they come.

What, we are listening to Steve Milloy on his criticism of T. Boone Pickens, and everyone completely ignored him when I pointed out his critique of Global Warming ?
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

I think his analysis on Global Warming was excellent, but I think his analysis of T. Boone Pickens is overly simplistic. For one thing, water rights in the SouthWest are a serious buisness to everyone in the region, and as such people can't get away with any hankey pankey. There is too much oversight by everybody and their dogs to allow this to happen.

The bottom line is, the State Governments are going to trump any legal manuevering that affects water. In other words, if some sort of legal trickery is tried, as soon as it is noticed whatever contracts allowing it will be immediately abrogated, and it doesn't matter if you're T. Boone Pickens, OR the President.

I think the water rights trick is being used to build the transmission line. If an attempt is made to sell any serious quantity of water, there would be an immediate Federal Court injunction as well as State Court injunctions, and all related State agencies would be on his posterior.
The Legal teams of Ft. Worth and Dallas would also likely be involved, and probably dozen's of other legal teams as well.

Oklahoma and New Mexico and Coloradao, and possibly other states would be filing claims and injunctions, and I doubt anyone has enough clout to win the fight. If all else fails, the legislators of all the states involved would use Imminent Domain to strip whatever rights they think they've got.

No sir, water is not a funny business in the southwest.


In any case, I think the judgement that T. Boone is a fink is a little premature. He might be, but I don't see it yet. I believe that if T. Boone was trying to pull something covertly, Neither Steve Milloy, nor any other reporters would likely discover it.



David

[drmike]

That's a fact. I've tried to explain to "easterners" (anybody living east of the Mississippi) just how powerful water boards are. California and Colorado are probably the most powerful states when it comes to water, the latter only because they get it first. When you are drowning in floods it is hard to imagine how precious water is, but in an arid region that has agriculture it trumps everything.

Texas is a little weird because they have both floods and desert, with polywell they could pump themselves to a nice even solution.

[Mike Holmes]

My brother lives in California, and regularly travels down to Baja, Mexico, to surf. As he's fond of saying, "The Colorado River no longer reaches the Sea of Cortez." Fascinating fact.

If there's any "stealing" going on, it'll have to include government folks too. Which isn't to say it can't happen, quite the opposite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars

The point is to look for the municipality that might benefit from whatever maneuver Pickens makes. If there isn't one, then it may not be quite as sinister as it sounds.

The Salton Sea is some sort of abomination.

With Polywell, the energy for desalinization plants would make them far more cost-efficient, and water problems would evaporate... if you will...

Mike

[Alchemist]

For what it's worth I work for a company that is directly involved with Boone's Wind and Water deals and from what we're seeing internally, his water projects have pretty much come to a halt and he's focusing everything on the Wind Farm project. Yes, the man stands to make a lot of money from the wind farm project, but think about it this way: Regardless of who takes on a project like this, somebody is going to make a profit. If they didn't there would be no way they could undertake a project like this. Altruism is all well and good, but you can't be altruistic if you don't have any money.

[MSimon]

For what it's worth I work for a company that is directly involved with Boone's Wind and Water deals and from what we're seeing internally, his water projects have pretty much come to a halt and he's focusing everything on the Wind Farm project. Yes, the man stands to make a lot of money from the wind farm project, but think about it this way: Regardless of who takes on a project like this, somebody is going to make a profit. If they didn't there would be no way they could undertake a project like this. Altruism is all well and good, but you can't be altruistic if you don't have any money.

His ads read like a campaign for a certain political party's position on oil, natural gas, and alternative energy. And yet he is putting it across as a business proposition. Very clever. No campaign finance reporting requirements. :-)

If Congress gets in the way there will be a lot of new Congress Critters come 5 Nov.

Roger Fox - contact your friends before they make the mistake of their lives.

[rnebel]

I've had some contact with Mr. Pickens in the past. In the mid 80s, Phillips Petroleum was making some investments in fusion. Mr. Pickens, who is a corporate raider, decided that they had two much cash on hand and that their assets were larger than their stock price. Consequently, he tried to make a run on the company with the intention of splitting it up and selling off its assets. That ended the fusion work. Perhaps he has changed, but my view was that he was part of the energy problem rather than part of the solution.

[Jboily]

I've had some contact with Mr. Pickens in the past. In the mid 80s, Phillips Petroleum was making some investments in fusion. Mr. Pickens, who is a corporate raider, decided that they had two much cash on hand and that their assets were larger than their stock price. Consequently, he tried to make a run on the company with the intention of splitting it up and selling off its assets. That ended the fusion work. Perhaps he has changed, but my view was that he was part of the energy problem rather than part of the solution.

Having your assets worth more then your company stock price is never a good thing, to many peoples are watching for this kind of opportunity to make a pile of money, no matter the cost to others. I think the thing to worry about with Mr. Pickens would be that the polywell reactor is a threat to his other businesses.

There must be a of poison pill of some sort that would make the dismantlement of the company, and scraping the polywell fusion R&D unpalatable to any buyers.

I am not sure what this would be. Maybe the environmental politic of today might be enough, where to many people know of this technology potentials that it would give a black eye to any company trying to openly stop it. Maybe some sort of agreement with an other outfit that would end up having the ownership of the IPs, if the company is dismantled or if the R&D is not going forward apropriately.

[ckrucks]

But men like Pickens can?t take it with them.
So why not allow the BFR to succeeded? Unless a brain to computer upload is possible. Hummm?In that case I say we pass laws making that type of existence void of property rights.

I don?t know about you but I don?t want to be someone else?s employee for eternity.

Those folks have to step aside for the next generation weather they like it or not. That?s the way it has been and that?s they way it should be.
________
Honda Zoomer specifications

[IntLibber]

I've had some contact with Mr. Pickens in the past. In the mid 80s, Phillips Petroleum was making some investments in fusion. Mr. Pickens, who is a corporate raider, decided that they had two much cash on hand and that their assets were larger than their stock price. Consequently, he tried to make a run on the company with the intention of splitting it up and selling off its assets. That ended the fusion work. Perhaps he has changed, but my view was that he was part of the energy problem rather than part of the solution.

That sounds about right. Pickens Plan seems to me to be a massive fascist boondoggle to totally restructure our economy by fiat. Generally when the government starts sticking its nose into restructuring an economy, you get far more inefficiencies and pollution from wasted capital as a result.

At most they need to be raising fuel efficiency standards to encourage more hybrid manufacturing by auto makers. That will reduce oil demand enough to keep it below 80 a barrell for the near term (5-15 years or so) while polywell gets proven and implemented.

[Billy Catringer]

There might be untapped sources of funding in the Air Force and Army. All three branches of the military could use a power source like this one. All three of them would love to be free of DOE. The drawback to military funding is that someone somewhere in those organizations would likely want to classify the research.

OTOH, one might be able to sell them on the idea of making it available under something like the GNU Public License. Why? It would get them free of DOE and they all know that secrets cannot be kept in this country. I sometimes wonder how many of our research programs were inspired by the Soviets. They didn't have the money to do the research, so they leaked their ideas to us. We did the research and they looked over our shoulders. It's a jungle of mirrors out there.

[MSimon]

There might be untapped sources of funding in the Air Force and Army. All three branches of the military could use a power source like this one. All three of them would love to be free of DOE. The drawback to military funding is that someone somewhere in those organizations would likely want to classify the research.

OTOH, one might be able to sell them on the idea of making it available under something like the GNU Public License. Why? It would get them free of DOE and they all know that secrets cannot be kept in this country. I sometimes wonder how many of our research programs were inspired by the Soviets. They didn't have the money to do the research, so they leaked their ideas to us. We did the research and they looked over our shoulders. It's a jungle of mirrors out there.

NASA might be good too. Cheap access to space.