Earlier this year, with the oil price at record heights, T. Boone Pickens, a celebrated Texas oilman, seemed to confirm the unstoppable growth of the clean-technology industry when he announced plans not only to build the world's biggest wind farm, but also to spend $58m of his personal fortune promoting the cause of wind power. On October 30th, with oil prices having fallen by more than half, he told a television reporter that the boom he had foreseen in wind would be "put off", due to the unexpected fall in the price of fossil fuels and the sudden difficulty of borrowing money.
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