Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens wants to supplant oil with wind

[obie7661]

...Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.

"Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn't happen," Pickens says. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil...?"

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2008-07-08-t-boone-pickens-plan-wind-energy_N.htm

[CATS44]

JFK challenged us to put a man on the moon within a decade. We beat the time limit by a year.

FDR led us on a crusade to rid the world of the greatest technologically capable evil that history had ever faced. We did in five years.

A group of scientists took an atomic theory and turned it into the Manhattan Project. It took three years to turn theory into practice.

You would think that if a President challenged the country to become non dependent upon oil within a decade, and then created a Nasa type agency to do it (with funding), it would get done.

Imagine what would almost immediately happen to the world oil market if the United States put its national prestige on the line to rid itself of oil dependency within ten years. The bottom would fall out.

Of course, the people who bankroll the American political campaigns would not be happy campers, because they are making money hand over fist.

But it could be done. We have the technology, the creativity, the entrepeneurship to do it. We just need a leader who will provide the vision that will give us the will.

Imagine how the history books would treat a President who led us to oil independence. It is the greatest challenge we face, and almost every other major problem we have is a branch of that challenge.

[TigerCoach]

I agree CATS! We have the technology to do just about anything we can imagine, including some of those you mentioned, but we can't improve upon a fuel & engine system that has been used for 100 years? That's insane!

The engineers at many fine institutions in the country (Georgia Tech, MIT, Stanford, Cal Poly) would jump at the opportunity to create this monumental technology, and I bet they could do it within 5-10 years easy.

If we can build & launch a space station, we can develop a new source of power that would reduce the dependancy on oil.