Oil and gas developer T. Boone Pickens addresses a town hall meeting on energy independence Wednesday, July 30, 2008, in Topeka, Kan.

Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is coming to Lawrence next week to seek support for his plan for energy independence.

Pickens, who built his fortune in oil and has branched into other energy endeavors, will lead a town hall-style discussion of his plan at 4:30 p.m. April 8 at the Dole Institute of Politics. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., will introduce Pickens.

The institute plans to have seating for about 350 people in the building’s Hansen Hall, plus room for about 150 more in an adjoining room. No tickets are required, and seating will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

After being introduced by Brownback, Pickens will be expected to spend the next 40 minutes or so outlining what has become known as the “Pickens Plan,” a strategy that calls for the U.S. to boost use of wind and solar energy, tap domestic natural gas as a transportation fuel, increase incentives for household energy-saving alternatives, and create and update a national grid for transporting electricity.

Pickens unveiled his plan in 2007, and folks have been talking ever since. Just last month, his “T. Boone Pickens: The Clean Energy Summit” boasted a speakers list that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former President Bill Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore.

Now the conversation is coming to Kansas. At the institute, Pickens will take questions from the audience.

“It’s becoming increasingly important to explore market-driven solutions to the United States’ energy use,” said Bill Lacy, director of the institute. “The Pickens Plan is one such proposal that has generated public discussion. The town hall meeting with T. Boone Pickens will allow for our community to thoughtfully discuss and rethink our national energy policy.”

Specifically, Pickens’ plan calls for building new wind-generation centers, ones that would be expected to produce 20 percent of the country’s electricity and allow natural gas to be used as a transportation fuel. That combination, in turn, would replace more than a third of the United States’ imports of foreign oil.

Such changes, according to the plan, could be accomplished within 10 years.

Pickens is founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, a financial firm that manages energy-oriented investment funds. It has more than $4 billion under management.

In 1956, Pickens founded Mesa Petroleum, an oil exploration and production company that became one of the largest in the nation under Pickens’ leadership. Now, through Mesa Water, he is the largest private holder of permitted groundwater rights in the United States.