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"America is in a hole and it's getting deeper every day," Pickens said recently. "We import 70 percent of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war.
"I've been an oil man all my life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of," Pickens said. "If we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil."
Pickens wants America to throw all of its energy into wind power, nuclear power, ethanol and other resources.
Pickens is so excited about these energy sources, he's trying to build what could be the world's largest wind farm, which could cost upward of $10 billion.
Obviously, Pickens would stand to make billions of dollars if his efforts work, but his recent rant about America's dependence on foreign oil hits home for many people.
Not only is the United States paying through the nose for oil, we are buying it from a society where some people would like nothing more than to see the complete and utter destruction of the "evil Westerners."
Pickens said America's addiction to oil threatens our economy, our environment and our national security.
"It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people," Pickens said. "The addiction has worsened for decades and now it's reached a point of crisis."
According to Pickens, the United States imported 24 percent of its oil in 1970. Today, that number is nearing 70 percent and growing.
As imports grow and world prices rise, the amount of money America sends to foreign nations every year is soaring. At current oil prices, America will send $700 billion dollars out of the country in 2008. Ten years from now, that cost could equal $10 trillion, an incomprehensible amount of money.
Pickens wants to use wind power, among other energy sources, to make the United States go. He said America is the Saudi Arabia of wind power and the Great Plains states are home to the greatest wind-energy potential in the world.
Besides allowing America to end its dependency on foreign oil, thousands of Americans will be employed to manufacture the turbines and blades. Plus, wind turbines don't interfere with farming and grazing, they are clean and they don't threaten food production.
Pickens is also high on the use of natural gas, the cleanest transportation fuel available, he said. It's also cheaper than oil and 98 percent of the natural gas used in the U.S. is from North America.
T. Boone Pickens may be 100 percent on the mark, or he may be a complete nut job, but the billionaire oil man is right about one thing: It's time for the United States to break the hammerlock of foreign oil and build a new domestic energy future for America.
