Pickens Plan - Proposal

Proposal

The main proposals of the plan are:

1. Private industry would fund and install thousands of wind turbines in the Great Plains, which Pickens refers to as the potential "wind corridor" of the United States due to favorable wind resources and geographic location. Pickens estimates that these turbines could generate enough power to provide 20 percent or more of the country's electricity supply.
2. Government would pay for electric power transmission lines to connect the turbine farms to the power grid. They would provide energy to the Midwest, South and Western regions of the country.
3. With wind energy providing a large portion of the nation's electricity, the natural gas that is currently used to fuel power plants would be used instead as a fuel for thousands of vehicles. To increase efficiency, the Plan puts an emphasis on natural gas-burning fleets of trucks and buses. Thus, the demand for petroleum products made from imported oil would be reduced.