Pickens remains committed to energy independence, but is cutting back on wind power. (image: jurvetson via flickr.com)

T. Boone Pickens, recently an outspoken (and somewhat unexpected) proponent of wind power, has changed course again. Pickens announced earlier this week that he is reducing his investment in wind to focus more exclusively on natural gas. The Dallas Morning News reported that the former oilman’s company, Mesa Power, LP, will be taking a delivery of only 300 wind turbines, down from an order he announced in May of 687 turbines.

Those turbines were meant to become part of an ambitious wind farm in Texas; now, none of the turbines will be sent to the Lone Star state. Pickens told reporters that America has only one resource that can compete with oil “and it’s natural gas.” Pickens said that one reason wind energy has become less important is because of the drop in the price of natural gas.

The change in Pickens’ energy interest—wind energy was one of the lynchpins of his Pickens Plan—likely won’t earn the billionaire any points with environmentalists though, as the New York Times notes. The paper highlights that, once again, Pickens has “tweaked the Pickens Plan in a way that just happens to conform with his changing business interests.” The paper goes on to note that many of Pickens’s business investments will benefit if natural gas usage were to rise.

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T. Boone Pickens. (image: Center for American Progress Action Fund via flickr.com)

As reported by bnet.com on Friday, oilman-turned-natural-gas-entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens is talking about oil prices spiking…again. The outspoken Texan predicted in October that oil would reach over $75 a barrel before the end of 2009. Now he’s claiming that 2010 will see even higher oil prices, with crude potentially reaching $100 per barrel. Pickens doesn’t see the buck stopping there either—he thinks that, within a decade, oil could go as high as $300 per barrel.

Pickens, through his company BP Capital Management, is invested heavily in natural gas and wind power, which may be why he continues to shout, from the rafters, about oil prices sky-rocketing. His stance is in conflict with a number of other experts, including oil expert and former U.S. government advisor Philip Verleger, who predicted in July that oil could go as low as $20 per barrel this year. Although crude has recently been hovering at $80 per barrel, it slipped to it lowest position since October on Friday. This dip could be the start of a price reckoning for crude, which many in the Verleger camp say has been overvalued for months now, as optimism about the country’s economic recovery on Wall Street has not been falling in line with the realities of what’s still happening on Main Street, where the recession hasn’t abated and unemployment continues to rise.