The “Oracle of Oil,” T. Boone Pickens warns that America needs to produce more of its own gas and oil now, and focus for the future on renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.

T. Boone Pickens: You’re stuck with oil and natural gas I’d say for at least 20 or 30 years and, now, what do you go to, to get away from fossil fuels?  Probably you’re going to go to the battery, but a battery won’t move an 18-wheeler.  The only thing that moves an 18-wheeler today is either diesel or natural gas.  

You’ve got the renewables.  You've got the wind and the solar.  Will they work?  Of course they'll work.  They’re expensive though.  So, you’re going to have to be willing to subsidize the renewables to get to where you want to go or just wait.  Just wait and let the hydrocarbons get high enough that you’ll start to bring the renewables in because you’ll come in range as to their cost.  But, some people get in a rush and they talk about taking all the power generation plants out and replacing them with wind and solar.  Well, that isn’t even realistic.  I mean, the cost would be insurmountable, so let’s don’t even go there on that.

But young people should focus on energy.  Great opportunities.  So many places in the spectrum that they could fit in with whatever they most want to be involved in.  If they want to be involved as engineers or geologists or something, there is still a good place for them in the oil and gas business, but if they want to go renewables, that opportunity is there, but it’s going to be slow and it's going to be slow to make money until the price of oil and gas get higher and then that forces the renewables into the market.

Directed / Produced by
Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd