t. boone pickens

Winds shifting for Pickens' wind farm plan

T. Boone Pickens' massive wind farm, planned for Texas, is looking for a new home.

The energy tycoon and wind advocate told the Dallas Morning News that a project to install hundreds of wind turbines in the Texas panhandle will not work because of a lack of transmission lines. Instead, Pickens' wind company is looking for other locations in the Midwest and possibly Texas.

"I don't think the first place we build, though, is where we thought we would because we don't have the transmission," Pickens said in an interview done last week.

Pickens added that … Read more

Pickens faces headwinds on clean-tech plans

For oilman turned wind-power enthusiast T. Boone Pickens, the future is a bit up in the air.

The "Pickens Plan" for energy independence, launched in July 2008, now has 2 million supporters signed up online. It aims to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil by--among other measures--replacing imported oil with wind power and natural gas (two areas in which he has business interests).

His own wind project, however, has problems finding a grid to deliver power from his newly bought wind turbines. If it comes to fruition, the project, Mesa Power, would be the world'… Read more

CNET News Daily Podcast: Pickens project rides the winds

Texas oil billionaire and alternative-energy promoter T. Boone Pickens stopped by San Francisco last night during a tour to promote his plan for U.S. energy independence. The plan gets political support in the stimulus package, but Pickens' own wind project has hit some snags when it comes to transmission lines from his wind park to the Texas grid.

That and other headlines of the day on Thursday's CNET News Daily Podcast.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

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Does D.C. get energy independence? Pickens is of two minds

PALO ALTO, Calif.--T. Boone Pickens offered qualified support Thursday for the Obama administration's plans to reduce the nation's reliance on imported energy but said Washington's track record doesn't fill him with a lot of confidence about the will of the political class to get the job done.

"We have to get a plan going," said Pickens, who made his comments at the Global Technology Symposium at Stanford. He is the founder and chairman of BP Capital and has been promoting his own plan for energy independence since last year. The so-called Pickens Plan … Read more

T. Boone Pickens: The U.S. needs a 'wind bank'

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.--Billionaire and clean-energy proponent T. Boone Pickens said that the U.S. should establish a federally funded loan program, or bank, to finance large-scale wind developments.

Pickens spoke on Wednesday at the Clean-Tech Investor Summit here where he talked about his Pickens Plan for reducing imports of foreign oil. He also offered a number of energy policy recommendations.

His plan, launched in July, calls for spending $150 billion over the next 10 years to install turbines in the "wind corridor" of the Midwest United States, from Texas to Canada. The other major plank of the … Read more

T. Boone Pickens may stall wind farm plans

Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens, who launched a high-profile campaign to reduce oil imports to the U.S., is being forced to delay a huge planned wind-farm project, according to published reports.

Over the past two days, Boone spoke at events where he said that the wind project is having trouble getting financing because of the credit crunch.

He was also quoted saying that falling prices of natural gas, used in power plants, are making his wind project less economical.

Boone in July launched a public campaign, said to be funded with $57 million of Boone's money, to wean … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 776: The Dark Knight kills the Godfather

The wisdom of the crowds turns out to be simple mob rule, as Dark Knight fans not only mod up their new favorite movie but start modding down The Godfather on IMDB. Also, we do a probably wildly inaccurate (but, we think, hilarious) T. Boone Pickens impression because plain old financial stories are just not interesting enough. Oh, and Scrabulous is now gone from Facebook. So, you know, get back to work. Listen now: Download today's podcast Episode 776

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Microsoft goes … Read more

T. Boone Pickens: A man with an energy plan

Oil mogul and corporate raider T. Boone Pickens launched an energy plan and social-networking campaign on Tuesday that calls for replacing Middle Eastern oil with Midwestern wind.

The so-called Pickens Plan would exploit the country's "wind corridor" from the Canadian border to West Texas to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity.

Transmission lines would be built to transport the power to places in the U.S. where the demand is. The natural gas, now used to fuel power plants, would instead be used as a transportation fuel, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is domestic. … Read more