T. Boone Pickens to speak at Rice Jan. 6

T. Boone Pickens to
speak at Rice Jan. 6

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

T. Boone Pickens, the founder, chairman and CEO of BP Capital, will hold a town hall meeting on his Pickens Plan Jan. 6, hosted by Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. The speech will take place at Shell Auditorium in McNair Hall.

	T. BOONE PICKENS

The Pickens Plan calls for measures to utilize U.S. wind and natural gas to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil by harnessing domestic energy alternatives and buying time for the U.S. to develop even greater new technologies.

Under the plan, 22 percent of U.S. electricity needs would be generated through wind power and the displaced natural gas would be used for transportation fuel. According to plan estimates, a combination of these domestic energies could replace 30 to 50 percent of U.S. foreign-oil imports over the next 10 years.

Pickens graduated with a degree in geology from Oklahoma State University in 1951 and went to work for Phillips Petroleum Co. in Bartlesville, Okla. Three-and-a-half years later, he struck out on his own as an independent geologist and, in 1956, founded Mesa Petroleum. Under his leadership, Mesa grew into one of the largest independent oil exploration and production companies in the United States.

Pickens is credited with contributing nearly a half billion dollars to various philanthropic causes and has formed the T. Boone Pickens Foundation, which supports educational programs, medical research, athletics and corporate wellness, at-risk youth, the entrepreneurial process and conservation and wildlife initiatives.

The Jan. 6 event is hosted by the Baker Institute Energy Forum and co-sponsored in coordination with Rice’s Energy and Environmental Systems Institute, the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, and the Center for the Study of Environment and Society.

The town hall will begin at 4 p.m in the Shell Auditorium at McNair Hall.