Commentary T.

Boone Pickens $60 million effort to promote his energy plan is receiving an almost invariably flattering press coverage. And why not? The headline for the story writes itself: "Oilman turns wind-energy advocate." But wind energy is not the key element in the Pickens Energy Plan. Natural gas is. He proposes to shift the nations natural gas from power plants to vehicles. That is where we should focus our attention, even if the headline natural gas billionaire promotes natural gas isnt all that stimulating. Why? Because Pickens proposal on natural gas is both misguided and self-serving. Natural gas power plants make ideal backups to intermittent energy sources like wind. Unlike coal or nuclear power plants they can be turned on and off quickly and efficiently, Since they are inexpensive to build but expensive to operate they usually operate only a few hundred hours a year to meet peak demand, again making them a perfect complement to wind and solar energy. There's another reason to reject Pickens' proposal. Transforming our transportation fleet to natural gas will require massive investments in new engines and fueling systems. And after 15 to 20 years and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars, our new transportation system would still be 100 percent fossil-fueled and increasingly dependent on a fuel whose life expectancy is not much longer than oil's. A far better plan is to use the electricity generated by wind and sunlight to power our cars directly. Electric vehicles have important advantages over cars powered by natural gas (or gasoline). They are more efficient. They are quiet. They generate no tailpipe emissions. Electrified cars, unlike natural gas vehicles, also have the great advantage of being able to be introduced incrementally. The first generation of plug-in hybrids with a limited electric-only driving range, might use electricity for only 25 to 50 percent of their trips. But the next generation electric vehicles may use electricity for 80-100 percent of their trips. In California, Pickens recently made clear his focus on natural gas by single-handedly financing a ballot initiative that would raise $3 billion for incentives for vehicle owners to switch to cleaner fuels. The initiative favors natural-gas vehicles. The biggest rebates would go toward the purchase of heavy-duty trucks and transit buses fueled by natural gas. Only natural-gas vehicles would qualify for the largest rebate, $10,000, for passenger vehicles. The primary beneficiary of this ballot initiative would be Clean Energy, the nation's biggest supplier of natural gas for transportation needs. Pickens is majority shareholder of

Clean Energy. Pickens makes no bones that his plan could earn him additional billions. But he argues that his self-interest coincides with the public interest. In the case of his advocacy of wind energy that may be true. It is not true of his advocacy of natural gas as a vehicle fuel.

About David Morris. David Morris has been a consultant or advisor to the energy agencies of Presidents Ford, Carter, Clinton and George W. Bush. He is the author of Driving Our Way To Energy Independence. He is vice president of the 34 year old, Minneapolis and Washington, DCbased Institute for Local Self-Reliance.