The Pickens Plan

Dude was all over the History Channel last night, and I caught the commercial airing before two of the three morning shows this morning. The Pickens Plan. As I understand it, Mr. Pickens, who owns natural gas stations and wind power plants, wants to wean the country off foreign oil, use wind power as a transition technology, and then run our cars off natural gas. Natural gas is cleaner than oil, but the transition to natural gas, I assume, would be carbon-costly. Politically, it's going to be hard to convince consumers to look to natural gas as a cheaper alternative since wholesale prices are rising in tandem with oil prices.

I'm off to the Monitor Breakfast to hear another billionaire on a crusade: Pete Peterson will tell reporters about his billion-dollar plan to turn a balanced budget into a major political issue this cycle.