T. Boone Pickens has long had the knack for personifying any number of characters, from the heavy-drawled Texan, to the billionaire oilman in the early stages of his career, to the audacious corporate raider in the 1980s. His latest incarnation was supposed to be that of visionary wind farm developer.

But dreams of building the largest wind farm in the world have gone up in smoke, as Pickens’ recent struggles have come to personify the fortune of the wind market in 2009.

Only one year after overtaking Germany as the world's largest wind-power generator, with $16 billion worth of investment according to consulting firm Emerging Energy Research, the United States has seen its wind market momentum drop dramatically.

Pickens recently called off plans for his $10 billion behemoth spread across the Texas Panhandle, citing several factors that forced him to alter his plans, including lack of transmission lines and a fall-off in the price of natural gas, with which wind competes as a power source.

"Does this mean we're taking a step back? Yes," says Ed Weston, director for the Great Lakes Wind Network. "But I don’t think there’s any question that the wind industry is going to be a significant growth industry for the next 20 years in the United States. This is just a short-term glitch."

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Part of the challenge lies in the fact that wind energy is a naturally capital-intensive, heavy manufacturing industry, stretched by long lead times. Because 2008 was a record year, many installations continue to forge ahead in 2009. According to Emerging Energy Research, an estimated 6,500 megawatts of total wind power capacity has been added in the United States in 2009, down from 8,546 in 2008.

"About 4,000 of those megawatts that will be installed this year were actually projects that had difficulty getting financing toward the end of 2008 and were meant to come online then," says Matthew Kaplan, a senior analyst for the North American wind energy markets for Emerging Energy Research. "There's going to be a very small amount of new plants actually installed this year."

But that perception is relative.

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