When T. Boone Pickens announced he wanted to steer the U.S. away from its dependence on foreign oil by creating the world’s largest wind farm, it was an exciting moment—after all, Pickens is a bona fide energy tycoon and has made a career out of oil; the plan signaled a change in the works, an insider from oil recognizing that supply had risen above demand and that the planet can no longer support our use. Of course, Pickens’ investments in alternative energy sources, including wind, were likely a motivator too. But that was two years ago, and now Pickens is canceling—or at the very least postponing—his plans to build the world’s largest wind farm. Instead he’s looking for homes for the almost 700 giant wind turbines he’s already purchased for the now defunct wind farm.

Pickens cites the current financial climate and logistics issues for the change in plans, and in the wind power world, this isn’t the first time money issues have proved fatal. In fact, the recession has seen doors shutting and employees being laid off in wind power companies around the country, where the new technology must battle against high start-up costs. When it came to logistics issues for Pickens’ wind farm, most of the problems arose in transporting the wind power from the site of the many wind turbines to a power distribution center elsewhere in Texas. Now he and his company, Mesa Power, must wrestle instead with the logistic problems of what to do with the hundreds of 400-feet tall wind turbines that will be arriving in 2011.

Pickens insists he’s not giving up on wind farms yet, however, and has stated that his plans are more delayed than they are canceled. In the meantime, he’s hoping to set up smaller wind farms with about 150 wind turbines apiece and is checking out locations in Texas, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Canada.

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