Big machines have been rolling up to Allegheny Mountain for days. Site development work on Virginia's first industrial wind energy plant is expected to start this week. Passersby report heavy equipment has been parked near the entrance to Red Oak Knob, and blasting heard over the last couple of days. A skidder moved in after dark a few days ago, and trees are being cut near one of the turbine sites; one truck full of logs has already headed out with its load.

District 300 would shoulder 80 percent of the costs - as well as potential benefits and decision-making - associated with the consortium that would build wind turbines to generate the electricity. Dave Ulm, the district's energy coordinator, said the entire project is estimated to cost between $46 million and $50 million.

Vertical shaft turbines are safer, produce twice the energy of prop-style turbines We've all seen the ads; a line of stately wind-turbines along the crest of a windswept hill, their slowly turning blades gently generating clean, abundant energy for a revitalized, green Earth. They look . . . peaceful. Noble. Benign. How can something so innocent-looking be so deadly?

Darrel and Jean Gogel's Trochu acreage is a piece of calm in a hectic world--where Darrel can retreat after working days away as a truck driver, and Jean can unwind from her job as a hospital housekeeper. That could change, the couple says, if a plan for a 54-turbine wind farm near their house goes ahead.

Efforts should be focused on stopping output of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas which helps heat the planet, rather than moving to a source that can be regenerated, said Craig Mundie, the man who replaced Bill Gates as the world's largest software maker's futurist. Conservation and radical technologies, including new nuclear, could be key, he said.

The police in Nandurbar are verifying a complaint by one Anand Thakare alleging that Aishwarya, Suzlon Energy Ltd, the company that makes wind energy turbines and maintains and operates the turbines on behalf of the investors, and several others had duped him into "selling" his land cheap for a planned 1,000 MW wind energy farm.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund invested $15 million in Invenergy's High Sheldon Wind Farm, located in Wyoming County, through Credit Suisse Customized Fund Investment Group, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced Monday.

A company plans to build a $420 million wind farm with 133 turbines in southwest Campbell County. San Ramon, Calif.-based Third Planet Windpower is eyeing 14,000 acres for the project on both sides of Wyoming Highway 50 near the Johnson County line. The company has begun talking to local landowners about leasing land.

The Solway Firth is at the centre of £500 million proposals to build a mile-long dam between England and Scotland fitted with energy-generating turbines, the Sunday Herald can reveal. The proposed tidal barrage, subject of a £60,000-£100,000 feasibility study commissioned by Scottish Enterprise, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Northwest Regional Development Agency (NRDA), would stretch over the River Solway from Annan in Dumfries & Galloway to Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria.

The Obama administration wants to rebuild the national electric grid that delivers power to everyone's toasters and televisions. One reason is that the grid can't handle all the new solar and wind power the president wants to build to create a greener energy economy. Here's the problem: Solar and wind power are intermittent. Sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it's not, and it's the same for wind. But the grid needs constant and reliable sources of power.

Vermont Public Power Supply Authority based in Waterbury wants to build three turbines on an old Air Force radar base in East Haven. The project would provide renewable power for approximately 4,000 homes.

Electricity distributor NorthWestern Energy is seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to conduct "open-season" bidding from developers to gain access to two proposed electric transmission lines costing at least $1 billion. The power lines, if approved, could kick start wind farm development in Montana and deliver the renewable electricity produced by wind farms to markets across the West, according to NorthWestern officials. "We want to be the highway," NorthWestern spokeswoman Claudia Rapkoch said.

To make use of this clean [renewable] energy, we'll need more transmission lines that can transport power from one region to another and connect energy-­hungry cities with the remote areas where much of our renewable power is likely to be generated. We'll also need far smarter controls throughout the distribution system--technologies that can store extra electricity from wind farms in the batteries of plug-in hybrid cars, for example, or remotely turn power-hungry appliances on and off as the energy supply rises and falls. If these grid upgrades don't happen, new renewable-power projects could be stalled, because they would place unacceptable stresses on existing electrical systems.

Behind the scenes in the U.S. and in Europe, the race is on to build the world's first deep-water wind farms, ones that would operate on floating platforms in waters hundreds of feet deep, like oil rigs found in the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. There are gargantuan technical hurdles ...

Opposition continues to grow against a high-powered transmission line proposed to run through parts of Gillespie and Kerr counties. A steering committee in Harper and other concerned citizens opposing the private transmission lines have met several times in the past few months and are encouraging landowners to resist leasing utility easements. ...Hilliard Energy is attempting to acquire a series of contiguous 180-foot utility easements for Florida Power and Light Energy to build a private 345 kilovolt line from Taylor County to Comfort.

The next stage of the Tuki wind farm will be unknown until the end of the year. Wind Power met with Hepburn Shire Council last week, after mounting community concern about the proposal. There has been community speculation over whether the proposal will go ahead at Tuki and how many turbines it would involve.

An Upper Moreland company is seeking a $1 million state grant to develop a combination solar and wind turbine that it is touting as "the world's first hybrid renewable energy technology." Precision Assembly Inc., on the 2300 block of Computer Avenue, is partnering with Bluenergy Solarwind Inc., to develop the turbines, which would harness both wind and solar energy and would be sold to owners of commercial or residential buildings to provide clean energy, according to Paul Stepanoff, the company's chief executive officer.

N.C. State University was selected by the National Science Foundation to lead a $28.5 million research initiative to transform the nation's century-old power transmission system into a "smart grid" network that will be able to store energy from solar power, wind farms and other alternative resources.

A New Jersey company said last week that it has joined with Michael Nakhamkin, one of the top thinkers in energy storage, to develop ways to trap wind-generated power in underground reservoirs. Nakhamkin has helped develop technology to pull excess energy off the power grid - usually at night when usage has waned - to run compressors that pump air into sealed, underground caverns that once held oil, salt or natural gas. During periods of higher demand, the air is released and heated to run air expansion turbines. ..."We really think this is a game-changer for the renewables industry," said Roy Daniel, chief executive of Energy Storage and Power LLC, a joint venture between PSEG Energy Holdings and Nakhamkin.

If wind energy converters are located anywhere near a residential area, they must never become too noisy even in high winds. Most such power units try to go easy on their neighbors' ears, but even the most careful design cannot prevent noise from arising at times: One source is the motion of the rotor blades, another is the cogwheels that produce vibrations in the gearbox. These are relayed to the tower of the wind turbine, where they are emitted across a wide area - and what the residents hear is a humming noise. ...In a joint project with colleagues from Schirmer GmbH, ESM Energie- and Schwingungstechnik Mitsch GmbH and the Dr. Ziegler engineering office, IWU researchers have developed an active damping system for wind turbines. The project is being funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt.