America's Jack-Off

Remember when T.Boone Pickens tried to convince everyone that we had to give his natural gas and wind power companies hundreds of billions of dollars RIGHT NOW or the world would explode? Remember that?

Never mind, it's not profitable anymore...

T. Boone Pickens has temporarily shelved plans to build the world's biggest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle because of tight credit markets and low natural gas prices, and his company Mesa Power is looking for other projects that could use the $2 billion worth of wind turbines already on order.

Pickens unveiled plans in 2007 for the 4,000-megawatt wind farm -- big enough to power 1.3 million homes -- at a projected cost of $10 billion. In May 2008, Pickens ordered 667 wind turbines from General Electric for the first of four project phases. Mesa is scheduled to begin taking delivery in 2011.

The project was a symbol of the oilman's commitment to his high-profile campaign to slash the nation's dependence on foreign oil with a combination of wind power and the use of natural gas in vehicles.

"Boone still remains committed and focused on developing wind energy in the United States," said Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Pickens's BP Capital Management. "The timing is not as aggressive as he originally outlined because of the collapse of the capital markets and because of the steep downturn of natural gas prices." (Many utilities are choosing natural gas to generate electricity.)

Remember, we had to end our dependence on foreign oil as an urgent national security and environmental issue. "We've been talking about it for 40 years," and the consequences of delay were grave.

Unless the market drops.

So, the moral of the story is, don't do business with right-wing greedheads who really aren't committed to anything but lining their pockets.