THE NEW PICKENS WIND PLAN

Pickens To Develop 500 MW Of Wind Power
Cassandra Sweet, March 4, 2010 (Dow Jones News Wires via Wall Street Journal)

"Energy investor T. Boone Pickens…is putting together deals to develop 500 megawatts of U.S. wind power with turbines made by General Electric Co. (GE), and will make a formal announcement in 30 days.

"Pickens, who is chairman of hedge fund BP Capital Management, wouldn’t say where the wind farms would be located, but he said they wouldn’t be in the Texas Panhandle, despite its strong wind resources, because of a lack of transmission capacity. The facilities will be developed using 324 wind turbines made by GE."

The Pickens Plan

"…[Pickens] noted that the project will be half its initial size, and had to be scaled back due to low natural gas prices that have driven down power prices and put pressure on renewable energy projects.

"Wind power is profitable when natural gas prices are about $7 a million British thermal units, Pickens said. By contrast, gas in New York was recently trading for $4.58. Pickens said he is still committed to developing wind power, despite the current market difficulties."

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"The former Texas oilman has been an ardent advocate for greater development and use of renewable energy and natural gas to replace foreign oil. He predicted that oil prices will rise to $300 a barrel by 2020 and the U.S. will rely on imported oil for three-fourths of demand if the nation doesn’t shift to alternative fuels.

"Pickens, who also owns a large stake in a natural gas vehicle fuel company called Clean Energy Fuels Corp., said the U.S. has 4,000 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas reserves and the nation should retool its transportation system to fuel trucks and other vehicles with the homegrown fuel…"