Pickens Backs Personal Methane Reclamation

Report by Hal Stevenson, OK Chapter

T. Boone Pickens, an American businessman who has made billions from oil and gas, recently made headlines by aggressively advocating for wind generated power.  Pickens is back in the news with his latest alternative energy plan, which harnesses a different kind of wind.  The Oklahoma billionaire has developed a contraption to harness the methane gas producing capacity of the human body. Says Pickens, “America became the World Power on the strength of self-dependence, and there is nothing more American than depending on our own bodies for energy production.”

The unit, which weighs 50 pounds, connects a pair of airtight rubber underwear to a methane collector that is worn on an individual’s back.  Pickens calls “this unobtrusive miracle of modern science ... the fruition of our ‘green’ aspirations.”  By maintaining a high legume diet, and wearing the backpack unit nonstop, an individual can collect enough methane to heat an average home for one week each year.  Pickens looks “forward to the day when we can point our collective American ass at the Arabs and say, ‘no thank you, we’ve got our fuel right here!’”