Should the lesser prairie chicken become listed as threatened or endangered - and it's close now - there would be significant restrictions on companies hoping to plant towering turbines across a five-state region believed to have some of the nation's best wind energy potential. "We've never seen the likes of this," said Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wildlife biologist Heather Whitlaw, who is part of conservation efforts with the other states and believes the bird could be listed within two years. "Anybody who puts anything on our landscape would be evaluated in one form or another."

The equation changed in the winter, when layoffs hit the wind industry hard, Shamblin said. Unemployment for June was 6.7 percent, still below the state average but the highest in Nolan County since at least 2000. Rainey would hear again from his former employees around March, after the completion of some wind construction projects. "When it all shut down, all four of them came back looking for a job. By then, it'd slowed down for us, too," Rainey said.

The answer to North Carolina's green energy challenge is blowing in the wind-swept mesas of Texas. With the first deadlines fast approaching for North Carolina's renewable energy targets, power companies in this state are snapping up green certificates from out-of-state wind farms. The certificates don't buy electricity, but pay for credits needed to meet state targets.

San Patricio County Commissioner Jim Price, a private pilot, contends that because 19 of roughly 100 turbines planned by E.ON Climate & Renewables North America Inc. fall within four miles of the T.P. McCampbell Airport, they jeopardize the approach to a runway.

Members from DKR Wind, the company looking to build a windmill farm near Oilton, approached Commissioner's Court on how much tax abatement they are requesting. They are looking for a $280 thousand abatement over a ten year period.

Between the windy flats of West Texas, where wind farms have sprouted like bluebonnets, and the population centers of the central and eastern parts of the state, where electricity is consumed at a growing rate, sits the rolling land of the Hill Country. Landowners there are banding together in the face of a state plan to ship wind power across the area on transmission lines built and operated by the Lower Colorado River Authority.

Austin Energy, Austin's municipal power utility, was the first in the nation to give consumers the option of buying green-powered electricity. And as recently as last year the city's green power program, called GreenChoice, was number one in the nation, in terms of sales. This year, 99% of the city's allotment of green power remains unsold, even after seven months on the market, according to the Austin Statesman.

Similar to transformations brought by oil and agricultural industries in past decades, the [wind] industry's impact is more than skin deep. Some researchers have found going green through a new generation of windmills may not be what's best for the environment. "There's almost no understanding of the environmental impact of these wind turbines," said Ronald Kendall, director of Texas Tech's Institute of Environmental and Human Health. "I'm all for alternative energy, but I'm for getting it right."

The Competitive Renewable Energy Zone transmission lines proposed to pass through West and Central Texas have a number of ranchers and small town dwellers up in arms about the effect the 200-foot-tall lattice towers would have on the scenic Texas Hill Country. The Lower Colorado River Authority-Transmission Services Corp. proposes to construct three new, double-circuit, bundled conductor, 345-kilovolt transmission lines, primarily on double-circuit-capable lattice structures.

The office announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement with Baryonyx Corp., a Houston-based green energy company, that could turn waters off the island coast into the nation's biggest wind farm. Baryonyx Corp. was the sole bidder for the right to build a wind farm off the island's eastern shore, GLO spokesman Jim Suydam said.

Karlen Hardy's home on Farm Road 126 is built with a panel of glass windows to give her the best view of the hills. "During the daylight, I see the generators, and at night I see the red lights," Hardy said. "It looks like alien spaceships coming through the window. "The lines will totally destroy our view," she added. But Catherine Cuellar, Oncor spokeswoman, said the importance of the transmission lines outweighs the aesthetic worries. "I definitely think that as time passes, the visual impact diminishes," she said.

Austin's electric utility could soon reverse a long-standing practice of selling wind, solar and other renewable energy only to customers who choose to buy it, four Austin City Council members and a mayoral aide said this week. The council's ambitious goal of getting 30 percent of the city's electricity from renewable sources by 2020 could be in jeopardy if Austin Energy relies exclusively on its landmark GreenChoice program.

Having dodged wind farms near Enchanted Rock, those intent on preserving the beauty and property values in and around this Hill Country city are now focused on power lines. About 250 people met here Wednesday night to hear Texas Wildlife Association speakers discuss major new power lines planned to deliver electricity to metropolitan areas from huge wind farms being developed in West Texas and the Panhandle.

For the past decade, Austin's ambition to become the world's clean-energy capital has been best exemplified by one effort: GreenChoice, a program that sells electricity generated entirely from renewable sources such as wind. Now the nationally renowned program is struggling to find buyers - the latest allotment is 99 percent unsold after seven months on the market - and Austin Energy is looking for ways to bring down the rising costs. ...It now costs almost three times more than the standard electricity rate.

A sense of foreboding has engulfed this rural town since word spread that huge towers carrying power lines soon may punctuate its ruggedly beautiful landscape. "It's a big deal to have something of that massive size come through here," Kimble County Judge Andy Murr said. "There are very few large transmission lines through the county."

A plan to bring energy from West Texas wind turbines to population centers in East Texas has some Hill Country residents crying foul. KUT's Mose Buchele has details on what's got them worried.

"If you have a turbine going up near a cotton field, no problem: farmers will take money and be happy with it. But if you want to put up a turbine near Enchanted Rock, that is a different deal," says David Langford, Texas Wildlife Association's CEO and owner of a six-generation ranch in the Hill Country. "Is the potential benefit worth the probable negative impact on scenic views, tourism and land values?" asks Robert Weatherford.

T. Boone Pickens' plan to build the world's largest wind farm is off. Instead, Pickens said he will build five or six smaller wind farms, in the Midwest and possibly Texas, though he hasn't settled on locations. Last year, Pickens announced that he would build a 1,000-megawatt wind farm in Pampa, Texas.

Monday's Commissioner's Court meeting began as usual with public forum, but a lengthy, animated discussion with members of the gallery regarding action on a proposed county tax abatement for the Senate Wind Project lasted in excess of 90 minutes.

A portion of a wind farm project in Kenedy County has been sold while the rest is up for sale. Australia-based Babcock and Brown is keeping the operation part of the Gulf Wind project, but has sold the rights to its expansion. Initial plans called for a total of 157 wind turbines and thus far 118 are spinning.