A better plan

I found this post discussing the merits of The Picken's Plan I've mentioned before. Pickens wants to substitute wind energy for our current natural gas demand and utilize natural gas to use as a fuel for cars to help wean the U.S. off of foreign oil. While I think it is great that a man like Pickens is becoming active in this area, I'm wrestling with the concept. It seems to me that it would be better to begin the infrastructure to improve electric-hybrid technologies for vehicles and commit ourselves to cleaning up our power production plants. That means utilizing natural gas instead of coal, putting a moratorium on building new coal plants and cleaning up existing coal plants through carbon sequestration. Again, there are a million different ideas out there, and I'm glad Pickens is raising this as an issue. Here are some points from the post that I agree with:

• Convert as many as possible of our existing coal-fired power plants to natural gas; convert our transportation fleet as quickly as possible to high-efficiency, low-emission vehicles
  powered principally by electricity.
• Modernize our electric grid to reach and better accommodate wind and solar resources;
  launch an economy-wide clean energy surge that, among other things, gives us zero-net-carbon buildings by 2030 to reduce the growth in electricity demand; and invest in mass transit, high-speed rail and other measures to dramatically reduce the nation’s passenger vehicle miles.
• Because natural gas produces fewer carbon emissions, utilities will be motivated to use it rather than coal once Congress puts a cap-and-trade regime in place. Assuming that utilities are permitted to trade carbon allowances, they’ll make more money using cleaner fuels;
• While there are high hopes for technology that will allow new coal plants to capture and store their carbon emissions in the future, existing conventional coal plants remain a substantial source of emissions. To achieve the emission reductions we need and do so quickly, we should begin converting existing coal plants to natural gas rather than depending solely on still-unproven carbon sequestration.
• Because natural gas is a finite fuel, big investments in new vehicles and fueling infrastructure will be stranded some day as the fuel becomes too expensive to compete with wind, solar and other emerging technologies. That’s a waste of money. It would be better spent on the transition objectives I listed above, including Pickens’ proposal for a massive investment in wind farms through the nation’s midsection and the transmission needed to move the power — an enterprise the Department of Energy estimates will cost $1.2 trillion.