T. Boone Pickens’ new book “The First Billion is the Hardest” is hitting bookstores soon. The book itself is not the news, but if you know nothing about Mr. Pickens, the title should tell you something. His name often appears in print preceded by terms like “tycoon”, “legendary oilman”, or “billionaire financier”. CNBC even coined the term “Oracle of Oil” to describe him. Financial World named him CEO of the Decade in 1989 and the Oil & Gas Journal listed him as one of the “100 Most Influential People of the Petroleum Century.” There is little question that this man has had an impact from oil fields to boardrooms, so it piqued my interest to hear about his interest in wind, his big interest in wind.

Mr. Pickens recently told the New York Times that he has “the same feelings about wind, as I had about the best oil field I ever found.”  The 80-year old billionaire is putting his money where his mouth is.

Last summer, this fossil fuel luminary announced plans to build the world’s largest wind farm in parts of four Texas Panhandle counties. Currently, the largest project in the world is a 735 MW project near Abilene, Texas. Pickens and his company, Mesa Power, are shooting for their project to be over five times as large. The first stage of the project, scheduled for construction in 2011, will be 1,000 MW. Upon its projected completion in 2015, the project will be 4,000 MW, which will number around 2,700 turbines in total. For some perspective, the U.S. wind power industry set a record in 2007 by installing just over 5,200 MW.

“We are going to have to do something different in America. You can’t keep paying about $600 billion a year for oil” Pickens told CNN.   In May, 2007 Mr. Pickens announced his initial order of 667 GE wind turbines, which cost about $2 billion.

Whatever your issues may be with regard to T. Boone Pickens, let us applaud his initiative. The industry is abuzz over how to propel ourselves forward and take the next big step – to 20% of our electricity generation (we currently stand around 1%). The challenges we face include government support, transmission infrastructure, and turbine supply chain issues.  But commitments on this scale to communities, to farmers and ranchers, and to manufacturers are still vital to keep up our momentum.

When discussing the growth and success of the wind industry, I often cite the companies that are involved in the industry that weren’t when I started in wind about six years ago. Major international industrial companies like GE and Siemens, key U.S. electric companies like FPL Energy and MidAmerican Energy, giant international energy firms like BP and Shell, and familiar names like John Deere and JP Morgan Capital all have a relatively new or vastly higher profile in the wind business.  Add to that list the transformational investment by Mr. Pickens, and the less familiar but well capitalized companies like the key European utilities E.On, Enel, and Iberdrola, and you have some convincing examples of a maturing, expanding global industry making strides – in Texas, across the U.S. and around the world.

As always, we want to hear from you. So please write to us at CommunityEnergy@newwindenergy.com.