Pickens scraps plan for world's largest wind farm

Energy tycoon T Boone Pickens yesterday confirmed he is scrapping his high profile $10bn plan to build the world's largest wind farm in Texas, and will instead divert resources to a number of smaller wind farms across the Midwest.

Pickens said that previously delayed plans for a 2,000 turbine 4,000MW development on 200,000 acres in the Texas panhandle had been shelved altogether, after technical problems with connecting the site to population centres emerged.

"It was a little more complicated than we thought," he Pickens told the Dallas Morning News.

The decision represents a major blow to the oil billionaire's self-proclaimed "Pickens Plan" to wean the US off of oil imports through the development of wind energy and natural gas resources. The 81 year old Pickens had spent millions on a nationwide publicity campaign designed to secure support for his plan, and lobbied intensively on behalf of the US wind energy industry.

However, Pickens hinted that the wider plan would continue despite the decision to scrap the Texas wind farm, insisting that his company, Mesa Power, would now turn its attention to developing up to four smaller sites across the US Midwest and south-west.

He said six different sites were now being assessed, while the New York Times reported that locations in Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas are believed to be under consideration.

The new sites will likely utilise 687 turbines that Pickens had already ordered from general Electric for the Texas project, and which are due to be delivered from 2011. Each of the three to four sites that are eventually selected for development are expected to house around 150 turbines.