Pickens Plan in a pickle

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Clean-energy investments have dried up during the recession, threatening the former oilman’s plans for a wind-powered renaissance. But he isn’t giving up yet.

In July 2008, amid soaring gasoline prices, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens began his glitzy $60 million advertising campaign to persuade Americans to break their reliance on foreign oil. His plan involves ramping up renewable energy investments to generate 22 percent of the country’s electricity from wind, and using America’s natural gas to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel.

To blaze the trail, Pickens announced the construction of the world’s largest wind farm near Pampa, Texas, and bought 687 giant wind turbines worth $2 billion.

One year later, Pickens’ prospects look bleaker. The credit crunch is in full effect, oil prices have plummeted to $65 per barrel, and the billionaire himself hasn’t raised enough capital to build the transmission lines necessary for brining wind power from his secluded farm to the urban hotspots in need.

Mother Nature Network