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T. Boone Pickens' Wind Farm Blows Away

Sung Moss

T. Boone Pickens' move to scrap his project to build the world's biggest wind farm conjures up a pretty apt Texan expression about the whole ordeal -- "all hat and no cattle."

Yesterday, the Dallas Morning News reported that Pickens was no longer moving forward with his long-talked about plan to build the massive wind project in the Texas panhandle. At one point, Pickens estimated the project could produce a massive 4,000 megawatts of power by 2014.

Instead, according to the report, Pickens plans to spread his wind turbines across smaller plots throughout the Midwest. Last year, Pickens bought up 687 turbines for the project. By the beginning of 2011, a first round of ordered turbines will be landing on his door step, leaving him only a few months to find alternative sites for them.

Pickens said the inability to bring a transmission line to the project proved to be the death knell. Other reports added that the oil baron's plans hit the skids thanks to slumping natural gas prices and shrinking credit markets.

The octogenarian, who has been rebranding himself as the renewables king through his "Pickens Plan" effort, has spent millions advertising his scheme to wean domestic dependence off of foreign oil and on to natural gas and wind sources.

How the wind farm's shelving effects the wind power industry as a whole remains to be seen. Shares of General Electric(GE Quote), which made and supplied the wind turbines for the project, were down 3.4% just ahead of the close of trading Wednesday.

Siemens(SI Quote), another big wind turbine maker, was flat on the day, approaching the close up 5 cents to $63.99.