T. Boone Pickens cuts back...

I hope this means we won't see more of his stupid TV commercials...

The multibillion dollar project to build the world's biggest wind farm in Texas has been delayed because of the fall-out from the credit crunch and the drop in the price of natural gas, it emerged today.

T Boone Pickens, a renowned Texan oilman who is raising the capital for the wind farm, told a US television station today that the twofold problem was slowing down his ambitious plan. Pickens, who made a fortune from the oil industry but has been converted to renewable energy as a means of ending US dependence on foreign oil, announced the original plan for the wind farm last year and construction was supposed to start in 2010.

"I think it is all going to be put off because we have got the credit crunch, one, but, two, natural gas prices [are down], so you are going to price wind off natural gas power and right now natural gas is so cheap there will be no new wind deals until natural gas price gets back up," he said. Natural gas prices are hovering around $6.80 per million British thermal unit (BTUs) down almost 50% since July.

Over the same time period, Pickens's hedge fund BP Capital has lost $2bn — or 60% of its value — since peaking in June. And according to a Wall Street Journal report, investors are bailing out.