But this year momentum has slowed. An indication of the way the wind is blowing came in July when T. Boone Pickens, an oilman turned clean-energy entrepreneur, decided to call off plans for the world’s biggest wind farm, in Texas. His 687 giant turbines, ordered at a cost of $2 billion, are now looking for new homes.
Mr Pickens could not arrange for transmission lines to be built from his wind farm to areas where the electricity is needed. Because they dominate the landscape, big wind projects work best in places few people live. America’s “wind belt” runs from Texas up to the Dakotas. Texas and North Dakota have both been called the “Saudi Arabia of wind”. But unlike oil, wind cannot be put in a tanker and shipped. It requires expensive grid infrastructure, which in turn rests on a complex and time-consuming approval process.
