HINESBURG — Vermont could get half its electric power from renewable sources within 10 years, including 20 percent from wind, if it gets busy developing the resources now, says a new report. The report by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, issued Thursday in the front yard of a company that makes testing equipment for potential wind power sites, comes against the backdrop of a debate over energy policy that has grown increasingly heated and increasingly political this election season.

Voters overwhelmingly opposed the wind tower proposal slated for neighboring Sheffield and Sutton on Tuesday evening. The unanimous opposition provided the town selectmen with precisely the overwhelming sense of direction they lacked last fall. “I think it was clear,” Selectman Robert Croteau said. “It’s not like we only had 25 or 30 people or even 60 or 70.” An estimated 120 voters turned out to make their position, and that of their town, unmistakably clear. That clarity, however, may have little effect on the Public Service Board (PSB), which must decide whether to issue a certificate of public good for the 16 towers UPC Vermont Wind wants to build.

(East Haven, VT - AP) - The state Public Service Board travels this week to the tiny northeastern Vermont town of East Haven to look at the site of a proposed wind power project. At the center of the debate over the proposed East Haven Wind Farm is how pristine the surrounding forest is and whether it would be spoiled by the project.

RUTLAND, Vt.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 15, 2006--Catamount Energy Corporation (Catamount) and Marubeni Power International, Inc. (Marubeni) announced today that they are ending development of the Glebe Mountain Wind Energy Project in Vermont.

But the thought of trucks rolling out of Bennington, west into New York state to pick up the wood chips to heat the schoolchildren of Bennington, and back to Bennington — while the Green Mountain National Forest sits off-limits to logging in the school’s own backyard — does not pass the common sense test.

New England Energy Alliance Survey Finds Consumer Concern about Future Electricity Supplies, Desire to Choose Electricity Supplier and Support for Addressing Global Warming

If New England's nuclear energy plants had to be replaced by other non-emitting sources of electricity to meet the RGGI goals, the region would be looking at large-scale wind projects, with weather-dependent output, spread over some 650,000 acres of land or water at a cost of more than $10 billion.

Two dozen energy experts and observers have been meeting quietly since September to forge a long-term plan for the state, but critics say the little-known process excludes citizen and environmental concerns, and once again marginalizes those who live where most of the state’s power is produced.

The town's Select Board plans to file documents with the state Public Service Board opposing a wind farm proposal to be located in Clarendon, Ira and neighboring towns. Board members voted Monday to oppose Vermont Community Wind Farm's plan to develop an 80-megawatt wind facility and to erect a 197-foot temporary wind measurement tower on Susie's Peak in Clarendon.

Since the PSB alone cannot change the system, I hope that it will work with the legislature to change the law, to develop a process for independent review of all the evidence. Conflicting claims should not be adjudicated in an adversarial forum.

MONTPELIER — A House committee is proposing a major expansion of a state program that allows homeowners and farmers to produce their own electricity and sell it back to utilities to reduce their own bills.

I walked on my normal walk in the woods one day and looked up to the top of the mountain. Just several months before it had been a picturesque view of wilderness beauty ... the kind that attracts tourists and creates much of the state's income. Now, it was lined with these tall mechanical monsters, towering over the trees of an old forest. I am not talking about the quaint and charming windmills of Holland here, we are talking about metal and flashing lights and a size that miniaturizes the grand forest beneath it.

A green energy future beyond 2012 that includes both nuclear energy and large hydro. Renewables (i.e., small-scale wind and hydro), efficiency, and demand side management programs should be our first choice for new energy supplies, but cannot realistically fill the enormous gap that would be created if Vermont Yankee's and Hydro-Quebec's licenses are not renewed. These two sources make up about 70 percent of Vermont's energy supply. Vermonters don't want their energy future stockings filled with lumps of smog-producing coal.

Five wind turbines proposed for Georgia Mountain are either a way to save the planet from dependence on fossil fuels or an environment-wrecking boondoggle, according to public comments at Tuesday evening's Vermont Public Service Board hearing. The board is considering whether to allow the Harrison family, which owns a concrete and construction business, to erect five 400-foot tall wind turbines on the mountain, which straddles Milton and Georgia.

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- More than 100 candidates for federal, state and local offices in Vermont have signed onto a plan by the Vermont Public Interest Research Group to reduce dependence on foreign oil and emphasize renewable sources of electricity. VPIRG asked 329 political candidates across the state to sign their pledge and 111 signed the document while 27 candidates provided position papers, which support similar goals.

In that survey, twice as many people said they would find them unacceptable or ugly. That's 2 to 1 against among those who actually had an opinion.

"The biggest blackout in history on August 14, 2003 brought all economic activity in the northeastern United States to a halt. At 4:11pm EST, the sudden plunge into darkness was a reminder of just how much we depend on energy for much of our activities.

Thirty years earlier, another energy shock – the 1973 OPEC oil embargo – provided a more protracted lesson in the importance of energy to our overall well-being. The recommendations in this Plan all stem from the fundamental importance of energy to the State’s economy and the well-being of its citizens. Because energy – especially electricity – remains a fundamental driver of the VT economy, competitively priced energy continues to be vital, since differentials in energy costs can be a determinant in relative competitiveness of one region over another.

The disparity between the average electric rates Vermont’s residential and business customers pay, and the average rates paid by customers in the U.S. as a whole, has steadily increased. In 1990, Vermont’s residential electric rates were about 15 percent higher than the U.S. average, commercial rates were about 20 percent higher, and industrial rates were some 35 percent higher than the U.S. average. Today, that disparity has grown to about 50 percent for all three classes"....

A Vermont-based company is planning to construct an 80-foot residential wind tower on Little Equinox this fall. Earth Turbines, a start-up in Williston that develops residential turbines, filed a joint petition Friday with Endless Energy Corp. and NRG Systems to the state's Public Service Board to erect the turbine and continue to use the 100-foot wind measurement tower already on the mountain. ...The town was notified along with adjoining property owners through the permit process. In the application, it states both the turbine and the tower "can be removed by Dec. 31, 2010."

Could it be that the confused senator's judgment is clouded by his personal relationship with certain landowners in Lowell who stand to make huge profits at our expense?