Now the odd couple of Carl Pope and T. Boone Pickens will have more time to pal around together.
Sierra Club chairman Carl Pope has retired and been replaced by Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club and former chief of the Rainforest Action Network. See his resignation e-mail below.
So the Sierra Club won’t be moderating.
As we reported in July 2008 when Pickens was swiftboating America with his so-called “Pickens Plan”:
… Pope now flies in Pickens’ private jet and publicly lauds him. The two are newly-minted “friends,” since Pope needs the famous Republican oilman to lend propaganda value to the Sierra Club’s anti-oil agenda and Pickens needs Pope to ease up on the Ogallala water opposition.
Will the radical Michael Brune be jetting around with the Republican Pickens? Though literally generations apart in age, both are anti-coal.
Check out JunkScience.com’s series on T. Boone Pickens rentseeking:
- The Wind Cries ‘Bailout!’
- Is T.Boone Pickens ‘Swiftboating’ America?
- Pickens gives new meaning to ‘self-government’
- Pickens’ Natural Gas Nonsense
- Picking on the Pickens Plan?
- Pickens hops aboard public health bandwagon
Carl Pope’s resignation e-mail:
November 18, 2011
Dear Sierra Club Colleagues,
After 38 years with the Sierra Club, I am opening my dance card to new partners. In December, I shall stand down as Chairman to undertake a new initiative. My hope is to pull together a broad front of environmental groups, labor unions, clean-economy innovators, mainline manufacturers, civil rights organizations, and state and local officials to insist that candidates for public office in 2012 address the role of innovation, clean technology, and manufacturing in rebuilding the American economy and restoring the American middle class.
I will continue to serve as a consultant to the Sierra Club and to fund-raise on the Club’s behalf through 2012, but this shift in my professional focus marks the close of my career as a full-time Club employee with broad-spectrum responsibility. Each of my previous Club roles, including my tenure as Chairman, has been a privilege and an opportunity, largely because of the incredible staff and volunteer colleagues with whom I have had the good fortune to work. I look forward to continuing many of those relationships — and to building new ones as my role outside the Club develops.
There are simply too many of you to thank and too much to be grateful for. So, for now, let’s just keep fighting the good fight.
Love,
Carl
All gas pipeline companies use natural gas to power the engines that pump the gas along the line. Some are gas turbines, but most are internal combustion engines. Some of those engines are spark ignition, Otto cycle, but many are compression ignition, Diesel cycle.
It turns out that methane is relatively difficult to burn, it requires relatively harsh combustion conditions, and the flame front is relatively slow. Methane has a high octane rating and does work well in Diesel engines.
gene,
as so many others you need to pull your head out long enough to realize that NG will only be inexpensive as long as there is NOT a scarcity. If there was mass conversions to NG the price would rise quickly. The FACT that coal plants are being shut down by Obie means that there is already a fast increase of the use of gas for electricity generation.
NG is NOT as convenient of a fuel as it is NOT as energy dense as gasoline for vehicles and cannot easily replace diesel. I would also point out that it still emits CO2 so the enviros will simply start attacking its use as soon as they have severely limited or stopped the use of gasoline. This throwing money at T. Boone Picken-our-pockets is un-necessary. If it is a good fit it will make it in the market on its own. There should be NO gubmint funds or guarantees spent on NG that is not spen on ALL other sources!!
By the way, tell someone who is having his house foreclosed or is just barely keeping on top of the bills that converting his vehicle to NG is not expensive. I think he may have some choice words for you.
Natural Gas / Dual Fuel vehicle conversions are not expensive and are a GREAT idea….Pickens was correct.
Looks like Pope has signed on to Obama’s re-election campaign. This might have been a conflict for tax deductions for contributions to the Sierra Club.