Billionaire Texas financier T. Boone Pickens‘ BP Capital commodity fund dropped in value by 34% in July, according to figures obtained by the New York Post.

Fortunately for Pickens, he has a plan to move away from volatile oil. It’s called the Pickens Plan. It involves converting US cars to run on natural gas instead of petroleum and devleoping a massive wind farm in Texas.

Floyd Brown at Investment U says Pickens has a history of being in the right place and the right time and profiting handsomely. Floyd has picked four stocks to help you follow Pickens’ lead into natural gas and wind energy…

T. Boone Pickens is a proponent of the much-debated peak oil theory. He believes the oil price shocks we have experienced this year are only the beginning. He sees much tighter supplies in the future.

“America is in a hole,” he told CNBC last month, “and it’s getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war. I’ve been an oilman all my life, but this is one emergency we can’t drill our way out of. But if we create a new renewable energy network, we can break our addiction to foreign oil.”

“In 10 years, $5 trillion goes out of the country for oil. It’s nuts. It’s the greatest transfer of wealth from one area to another in the history of the world.”

Instead, he wants this money to stay in America - with a good portion of it going into his pocket.

His plan is simple. Cars need to be converted from crude oil and gasoline to compressed natural gas as soon as possible. And to replace the natural gas used in electrical generation, he advocates a giant wind farm stretching from Texas to North Dakota.

“America is the Saudi Arabia of wind,” he likes to say.

T. Boone Pickens Has An Energy Plan to Save Our Economy

To be sure, Pickens has an energy plan to save our economy - he is building the largest wind farm in America. It will generate as much clean electricity as two nuclear plants, and, best of all, with little negative effect on the environment.

His commitment to clean fuels has impressed the environmental community, prompting the Sierra Club’s director Carl Pope to say, “To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America.”

But don’t believe that he’s lost his focus on making money because he is in his 80s. “Money! First thing, it’s about money,” Pickens told Fast Company magazine in June.

“Of course, I’m also a good environmentalist. I can pass the saliva test. But I’m not going to go do a 4,000-megawatt wind farm for the environment first and money second. I’d rather go give money someplace else. You’re talking about $10 billion.” And what kind of return does he expect? “A minimum of 15%; it’ll probably be closer to 25%.”

Last year he also brought Clean Energy Fuels (Nasdaq: CLNE) public - a company that markets natural gas for vehicles. It designs, builds, finances and operates 170 fueling stations and supplies compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas. But what it doesn’t have is profits.

With Mr. Pickens owning 16 million shares, don’t expect that to slow this company down. Management is growing revenues at a rate of 25% per year.

I don’t have much taste for the shares of any company without positive earnings, such as Clean Energy Fuels. But the current downturn in natural gas prices has hit stocks in this sector hard. Today, a number of these gas stocks are cheap for the first time in over a year.

Natural Gas Stocks & Wind Power - The Pickens Plan

Two firms that specialize in natural gas exploration and production that have recently pulled back from elevated highs include:

• Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK), with a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of only 9.
• Devon Energy (NYSE: DVN), which has a P/E of 9.

In terms of wind power:

• General Electric (NYSE: GE) is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbines. With over 8,400 installed worldwide, it provides power generation capacity of more than 11,300 megawatts. GE currently trades at a very attractive P/E ratio of 13.5 and a 4% dividend yield. It pays you to hold its stock.
• FPL Group (NYSE: FPL) is the diversified utility and power generator that grew out of Florida Power and Light. It leads the nation in the development and operation of wind power. With more than 45 facilities located in 15 states, it has a generating capacity of more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

This represents approximately 35% of the nation’s wind-generated power.

There are many ways that our country is working to free itself from its energy shackles, and I don’t know if America will embrace the Pickens Plan above all others.

But T. Boone Pickens has a history of being in the right place at the right time, and profiting handsomely. By following in his footsteps and investing like him, you stand to make a bundle as well.

Source: The T. Boone Pickens Way: How To Supercharge Your Portfolio