Pickens' folly

"Natural-gas prices have fallen sharply since the summer of 2008, when Mr. Pickens announced the big wind farm (and)...Cheaper natural gas hurts wind farms, because cheaper gas makes gas-fired power plants a more attractive option for electricity generation. "You can't finance wind farms very well when natural gas is under $6" per million British thermal units, Mr. Pickens said. Natural-gas futures settled at $5.733 Wednesday afternoon on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The effects of the credit crunch and the economic slowdown also slowed growth in the wider U.S. wind-power industry in 2009, after a record year for wind-power installations in 2008."

"It's almost divine intervention," said Aubrey McClendon, chairman and chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, a major natural gas producer in the United States. "Right at the time oil prices are skyrocketing, we're struggling with the economy, we're concerned about global warming, and national security threats remain intense. We wake up and we've got this abundance of natural gas around us.

Gas production in the United States is up about 9 percent this year, a rate of increase not seen since a one-year jump in 1984 and matching rises more typical of the 1950s when gas drilling was booming. Most of that gain is coming from shale, particularly the Barnett Shale around Fort Worth, Texas, which has been under development for several years. The increase in gas production stands in sharp contrast to the trend in domestic oil production, which has been declining in fits and starts since 1970."