From the New York Times:
Mr. Pickens’s situation is of particular interest because he has spent much of the last year advocating an energy plan that includes increasing to 20 percent the amount of the nation’s electricity that is supplied by wind power. In his vision, that would free up natural gas now used to generate power so that it could be used in cars, reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. (Currently, wind accounts for just 1 percent of U.S. electricity.)
For the huge wind farm he had planned in Texas, Mr. Pickens had already ordered 687 large wind turbines from General Electric, to be delivered starting in 2011. But transmission lines being built by the state were unlikely to reach the location he has leased until 2013, so he needed to put the turbines elsewhere. Mr. Pickens had once planned to build his own transmission lines, but difficulty in finding financing amid the credit crisis forced him to shelve that plan.
Possible locations for the 687 turbines include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Alberta, Canada, Mr. Pickens said. Collectively, at a capacity of 1,000 megawatts — about the size of a nuclear plant — his project would still amount to a substantial investment in wind power. He had planned his Panhandle wind farm at 4,000 megawatts.
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