Wind goes out of T. Boone Pickens' Texas-size wind-farm plan

Two years ago onetime Texas oil baron T. Boone Pickens unveiled plans to build a 4,000-megawatt wind farm big enough to power 1.3 million homes. The projected cost: $10 billion. Last year he ordered 667 wind turbines for the farm. It was all part of his ambitious "Pickens Plan" to wean the nation from foreign oil.

Then the economic slump hit, and Pickens' hedge funds lost billions of dollars. Still Pickens "spent a good six months insisting the effort would still move forward, albeit with significant delays," Reuters notes.

Not anymore. Turns out building the wind farm was one thing, but hooking it up to the grid was another. Picken's company, Mesa Power was "unable to borrow $2 billion for transmission lines to link the wind farm to the Texas grid," the Washington Post reports.

Here's the AP video, with a clip of Pickens explaining his decision:

Pickens' woes "are symptomatic of a broader reversal of fortune for wind developers," the New York Times reports. "This year, Emerging Energy Research, a consulting firm, expects a drop of nearly 25 percent in the amount of new wind power installed compared with last year."

Despite the setback, Pickens swears he's still pushing his energy plan. ""This is going to work," Pickens said, pointing his finger at AP reporters as the elevator doors closed.

--Craig Pittman

Comments

[Tino]

Thank an environmentalist:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/environmentalists-sue-over-energy-transmission-across-federal-lands/?hp

[get-smart]

The environmental groups are suing the gov't because of the location of corridors to transmit energy as outlined by the Bush admin are encroaching national parkland's.

What are the environmental groups going to do when Salazar and friends want to cover hundreds of thousands of acres with solar panels to generate over priced electric? I'm sure the shade from the panels will create an inconvenience for some critter?

Cheers -

[Tino]

"hundreds of thousands of acres"?

Try hundreds of thousands of square miles.

The bizarre notion that the environmentalists bring up is that "the Sierra Club was not against transmission as a general rule, but wanted to ensure that the lines served renewable energy, more than fossil fuels"

Clearing a 50-yard-wide strip of land for transmission is BAD. Paving over hundreds of thousands of miles of bunny habitat for solar panels is GOOD.

[Texas Ann]

Boone Pickens is all hat and no cattle.