Analysts skeptical of Pickens' plan

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Oil man T. Boone Pickens' plan to boost renewable energy sources to curb U.S. oil dependence is unrealistic, some energy experts say.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday that Pickens' plan would substitute one expensive fossil fuel for another -- oil for natural gas.

Among other things, Pickens wants to generate at least 20 percent of the nation's electricity from windmills and take the natural gas that would have been burned power plants and instead use it to fuel cars and trucks.

"It's a pretty tall order to put that much wind capacity in place," said Chuck McGowin, senior project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif.

The newspaper reported that proposed wind farms and transmission lines often are opposed by communities.

"Just getting acceptance from the local populations can be a challenge, and could become more of a challenge in the future if we build out as much as proposed," McGowin said.

Even if the windmills get built, energy analysts expect that new natural gas power plants would still be built.

"Those aren't going to go anywhere," said Ken Medlock, an energy research fellow at Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. "We're not going to back out of gas."