Question: This week and next, the Bureau des audiences publiques sur l'environnement is holding hearings on two proposed wind projects in central Quebec. Last week, it heard from citizens affected by a 78-turbine wind farm near Thetford Mines. On Wednesday, it will hold hearings in St. Ferdinand on a proposed 50-turbine wind farm. Residents are deeply divided and some have reported acts of vandalism and threats. How concerned are you over how these projects have torn apart communities?

It was the strangest sensation Lynda Barry ever felt: a near-constant vibration within her body. ...Barry was standing in a house in Fond du Lac County, near a wind farm. The vibration she felt was created by wind-power turbines, one just 1,100 feet away. These were part of the Blue Sky Green Fields wind project, 88 wind towers owned and operated by We Energies. The owners of the house complained of ringing in their ears anytime the wind turbines and their 100-foot blades were spinning.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Wind Energy Research and Development Act of 2009. The bill is Rep. Paul Tonko's first piece of legislation as a congressman. The bill authorizes a comprehensive program to improve the efficiency, reliability and cost effectiveness of domestic wind energy systems. The bill passed with bipartisan support in a voice vote.

The measure, sponsored by Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., aims to ensure that massive wind-generating turbines - some with blades spanning 100 yards - can be more cost-effective in harnessing power from the wind. Right now, wind power makes up about 2 percent of the nation's electricity portfolio. ...Tonko said more research is needed to overcome the "many significant technical issues" facing wind-based electricity generation.

Rapid growth of wind-generated power in Australia could stall unless there is policy support for clean energy once a target of 20 percent renewable energy is achieved ...coal-fired power stations produce about 85 percent of Australia's electricity at about half the cost of wind power, one of the cheapest forms of renewable energy. Renewables account for about 5 percent of the country's energy supplies. "It is an industry that is supported by government and is reliant on that support," said Durran.

Austin Energy, a publicly owned power company and a city department of Austin, Texas, has found itself stuck with surplus renewable power as city residents have declined to sign up for higher rates under the city's voluntary GreenChoice program. Contracting with renewable power providers and offering the service to customers sounded like a good idea to city officials until the price tag came in at up to three times the cost of conventional power.

This may be a better time than ever for renewable energy. The climate for passing laws that would create subsidies for it are promising: last year, the Production Tax Credit for wind power was extended, along with a hefty longterm-Investment tax credit for solar power. ...But Bruno Mejean isn't feeling the winds of change just yet. The managing director and deputy general manager of Nord/LB, New York, a German financial institution, ...anticipates obstacles for the wind-energy sector in particular, and the biggest drag on developing renewable-energy projects, he says, is the prospect of a longterm low price for natural gas.

Several U.S. Senate Democrats, including a top leader, on Wednesday questioned whether it would be possible to vote on a climate change bill this year, especially with healthcare reform eating up so much of the lawmakers' time. "It's a difficult schedule" with many members already "anxious" about healthcare reform, Senator Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat, told Reuters.

Wind farms are spreading like a cancer and Teesdale must not be seen as a soft touch by green energy firms, the chairman of Durham County Council says. Cllr Brian Myers visited Bolam recently to find out more about Npower's plan to build a wind farm near the village. The unitary authority's chairman told residents that he was worried about the spread of wind farms in County Durham.

In recent weeks, the oil lobby and a manufacturers trade group ignited a campaign in the Mountain West and Midwest asserting that the House legislation would be a job killer. Environmental and labor groups have countered with a "Made in America" tour to highlight the green jobs they say would be created.

President Barack Obama is still at least a year away from seeing wind turbines take root anywhere off the U.S. coast, even though his administration has promised to make offshore wind a priority, and even though developers are lining up to string wind farms up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The administration, delayed by controversy and red tape, has made "clean energy" one of its top policy pushes.

The waters around the Cape and Islands are awash with ideas for harnessing renewable energy. From a tidal project in Muskeget Channel east of Chappaquiddick Island to ocean-based wind turbines, it is difficult to escape hope-infused plans for a green, energy-filled future. But over the next month, the action comes onshore during a series of public hearings and conferences on how to mold those dreams into reality.

Rupert Soames, the chief executive of Aggreko, the FTSE 250 emergency power generator, says the UK must prepare seriously for the danger of being hit by similar blackouts within the next decade. "It has happened before in developed countries and we should not kid ourselves that it cannot happen here," he said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph. "The UK has an unacceptably high risk of interrupted power supply." ...sceptics worry that a so-called "intelligent grid" could also be used to ration consumers in the event of insufficient capacity.

A state committee is recommending that power companies spend about $3 billion on transmission lines to connect renewable energy sites in rural Nevada to existing lines.

Even as Americans tell pollsters they are eager for alternatives to fossil fuel, some are fighting proposals for solar and wind projects and for the thousands of miles of transmission lines that would be needed to carry the cleaner energy to market. The protests echo grass-roots opposition that has blocked nuclear plants and energy-producing trash incinerators for decades. The new backlash is fueled by worries that renewable-energy projects would occupy vast amounts of land to produce significant amounts of power.

Two bills pending in the Legislature would force the state's electrical utilities to get 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020, up from the current requirement of 20 percent by the end of 2010. ...But the details involved in reaching such an ambitious goal have touched off a complex debate, one that will probably reach its climax in the next week when the Assembly votes on one of the bills.

A group of Manitoulin Island residents is taking on a Toronto-based energy company, accusing Northland Power Inc. of fast-tracking a wind farm project without proper consultation. The dispute is the latest sign of a groundswell of unease over wind power projects in the province, fuelled by groups such as Wind Concerns Ontario, which have been highly critical of the effects of such development on local communities. ...one of the project's most vocal opponents, says Northland has essentially "bulldozed" its plan over the community with little opportunity for a meaningful public response.

Tension between Powercor and wind farm developers is putting lucrative south-west energy projects at risk. Local councils are worried up to 50 per cent of approved projects could be scrapped ...Some wind farm developers have argued they should not have to pay for electricity sub-stations at the base of their projects and then transfer the assets to Powercor.

If the vast creosote-covered plain that is California's Mojave Desert represents to some the grand potential of America's renewable-energy future, Jim Harvey sees something else. "Their model is 'You must kill land to save land,' " said Harvey, a Web- page designer and homegrown activist who sees the Obama administration's push for green energy here as a destructive force poised to swallow his beloved desert. "How does that make any sense?"

State environmental officials oppose wind turbines anywhere in the Delaware Bay, a position that could jeopardize an Ocean County firm's plans for a wind park there. The Department of Environmental Protection cited potential threats to migratory birds, oyster seed beds and other resources in an Aug. 20 letter to Delsea Energy, of Toms River. Scott Brubaker, the DEP's assistant commissioner for land use management, wrote "the Delaware Bay is not an appropriate area for development of wind energy."