T. Boone Pickens Gives Up on World's Largest Wind Farm

Filed in archive Wind on July 13, 2009

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A number of sources (BusinessWeek, the News Tribune, Forbes, Fast Company) are covering the news that Texas oilman and billionaire T. Boone pickens has thrown in the towel (for now, at least) on his efforts to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas.

BusinessWeek put it this way:

After encountering some Texas-sized opposition to his alternative-energy plans, oilman T. Boone Pickens is delaying plans for a giant wind farm.

And Forbes suggested that the White House should learn something from the Pickens' fiasco.

Pickens had obviously hoped to become the poster child for wind. Instead, his Texas experiment is now a cautionary tale on the critical role of transmission to wind development. He's stuck with $2 billion worth of General Electric ( GE - news - people ) turbines, which he hopes to move to smaller projects throughout the Midwest and Canada.

Pickens ran into other problems, including access to water rights under his proposed wind farm.