Pickens Plan Misses The Mark, Expert Says

By Dan Bewley, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- T. Boone Pickens says the sagging economy is forcing him to put a main part of his "Pickens Plan" on hold. The Pickens Plan could have brought a large wind farm to the Texas panhandle. Now some analysts are wondering if wind power is all it's cracked up to be.

The Pampa, Texas wind farm would have been the largest in the world. Boone Pickens insists it hasn't been cancelled, simply postponed.

The Pickens Plan calls for using wind power as well as natural gas to replace our country's dependency on foreign oil. Supporters say it's important to do anything in order to achieve energy independence, but critics say the Plan was all talk and little substance.

Robert Bryce is one of those critics.  He's an author and journalist focusing on energy related issues.

He calls Pickens a master promoter who has underestimated what it would take to for wind power to become a major supplier of energy.                   

For example, he says, wind power is unreliable simply because the wind doesn't always blow.

The problem is for the past year Pickens has sold the Americans a bill of goods, this idea that wind power is going to save America and that it's going to reduce foreign oil imports and so on, it's just flat not true," said author Robert Bryce.

Boone Pickens insists the wind farm is still in the works but it's no longer planned for Texas, instead he's looking at other states like Wisconsin or Nebraska.