Some 150 people today protested against the construction of wind turbines in Poland and the Czech Republic at a Czech-Polish tourist border crossing. According to the protesters, various investors plan to build up to 400 windmills in the area - the Czech and Polish side of the Orlicke hory mountains. They say the construction of up to 200 metre high windmills would go against the character of the landscape.

Protesters against plans for 19 wind turbines each more than 400ft high on "West Glamorgan's last wilderness" have joined a new European-wide campaign against wind energy schemes. Opponents of proposals by npower renewables (sponsors of The Ospreys rugby team) for the wind turbines on common land on hills at Mynydd y Gwair north of Swansea say the project will ruin the upland area which has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Save our Common Environment (Socme), which is fighting the plans, has joined the European Platform against Windfarms representing growing disenchantment with the schemes.

Morgan Stanley cut its rating on Vestas to ``underweight'' from ``equal-weight'' yesterday, citing ``early signs of softening demand among small developers'' and the recent increase in raw material prices, particularly steel, which it said would constrain profit margins.

Investors in alternative energy are confident entrepreneurs will find ways to drum up finance without deepening the global credit crisis. Many people fear that as many alternative, low-carbon energy sources are more expensive than gas and oil, developing them will add to the current economic problems, but investors say projects will be aided by private capital. ...A diversified energy mix would help keep the lid on costs, executives told the London conference. "We must keep ideology out of our choices," said Pierre Gadonneix, chief executive of French utility EDF , who said the supply mix must include hydropower, nuclear, wind and high-efficiency coal and gas.

Wind turbines generate electricity very irregularly, because the wind itself is inconsistent. Therefore wind turbines always need backup power from fossil fuels to keep the electricity grid in balance. Gas turbines are the best way to do this. They are able to respond quickly and push power production when wind generators stop suddenly. They can be turned on and off almost instantly, whereas traditional coal-fired plants need to be maintained in a very inefficient standby mode if they are to respond to large fluctuations in power demand. A proliferation of windmills, then, can become a windfall for gas sellers. Just look at the cases of Spain and Germany, Europe's leading producers of wind power.

Wind power may be one of the cleaner, greener energy sources available, but turbine and blade failures point to dangers that were not anticipated, says Michael Connellan

Theolia SA, the French wind-power company part-owned by General Electric Co., fell after reporting a first-half loss on higher costs and cutting a target for full- year operating profit. Theolia, based in Aix-en-Provence, fell 25 cents, or 1.8 percent, to 13.80 euros in Paris trading, its lowest close since January. The net loss was 25.3 million euros ($36.6 million), compared with a profit of 6.2 million euros a year earlier. The company, which had planned to sell about half its wind- energy capacity, now intends to retain installations to take advantage of higher demand for power from renewable-energy sources.

Despite the political momentum whipping up interest in renewable energy, one wind-power firm was not celebrating on Wednesday. Shares of French wind-energy firm Theolia, which is partly owned by General Electric, dropped 8.6%, or 1.21 euros ($1.74), to 12.84 euros ($18.51), during morning trading in Paris on Wednesday. ... Theolia could usually rely on the sale of wind farms to third parties to rake in cash, but it sold nothing in the first half of 2008; this is primarily because of Theolia's exposure to Germany, where a higher tariff structure set for 2009 gave little incentive for buyers to make deals before then.

It's not that all these big Dutch companies have suddenly gone 'green'. Adding an environmentally friendly touch to your company's image is a bonus, but according to Mr Westra, the only reason Ballast Nedam, Siemens, KPN and the other companies backing the advert are so keen to start building offshore wind farms is because they offer a chance to make profits. "On land you're talking about investing millions. When it comes to wind energy at sea, we're talking about investing billions. That's the reason, and all these people can see it too. They see a huge market in it."

Spanish builder FCC has agreed to buy all of the wind power generating assets owned by Babcock & Brown Wind Partners in Spain for 190 million euros ($322 million). FCC will also take on gross debt of 590 million euros as part of the deal, FCC said today in a statement.

Meridian Energy says more wind generation capacity could have prevented the threat of a power crisis this winter. New Zealand's largest power company says wind is more reliable than hydro power generation because it is always blowing somewhere. It says people should not read too much into official production figures which showed the Te Apiti wind farm produced only a sixth of its installed capacity during some autumn months.

Enel, Italy's power utility, has committed to a €500m ($789m) joint venture to build Italy's first offshore wind farm, involving the construction of 115 turbines off the southern waters off Sicily. The project, whose design was submitted to the Italian government yesterday, aims to become operational by 2012 and is competing to become the Mediterranean's first wind farm. There are two other projects planned in the Mediterranean but they have not yet entered the construction phase. ...Wind farms have been achieving high valuations in the past year, prompting some analysts to suggest the market is peaking.

The idea was that, in the intervening years, electricity produced with renewable energy technologies would grow to the point that the shift away from nuclear would hardly be noticed. That, though, is looking increasingly unlikely. Despite a decade of massive investment and generous programs established to promote wind, solar and biomass power generation, green energy sources make up just 14 percent of the country's energy supply. Even if that were to double in the near future, the lion's share of Germany's energy consumption would have to come from elsewhere. Without nuclear power, "elsewhere" in Germany necessarily means coal-fired power plants.

The German government wants to build up to 30 offshore wind farms in a bid to meet its renewable energy targets, Environment Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said in an interview published Sunday. Tiefensee told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper that the wind farms would be built in the Baltic and North seas and said some 2,000 windmills should soon be producing 11,000 megawatts of electricity. The government is aiming to obtain "25,000 megawatts of energy from wind farms by 2030", Tiefensee said. ...European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso weighed into the debate in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, urging Germany to rethink its decision to phase out nuclear energy.

The grand U.S. ambitions of Indian wind-turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy Ltd. are facing mounting problems. The Indian company -- the world's fifth-largest wind-turbine maker by sales -- earlier this year acknowledged that 65 giant blades on turbines it had sold in the U.S. Midwest were cracking because of the extreme gusts in the region. The company is reinforcing 1,251 blades, almost the total it has sold in the U.S. Now, other problems are emerging, in part because the company quickly ramped up U.S. sales to meet burgeoning demand for alternative energy. ...

Conglomerate Siemens AG, wracked by a wide-ranging corruption scandal, will cut up to 4 percent of its work force worldwide, or about 17,200 jobs, a pair of newspapers reported Saturday. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that the Munich-based company was set to shed the jobs -- mostly white-collar and administrative -- without citing any sources. ...The warning was a surprise for the conglomerate, whose diverse products include trams, turbines and telecommunications equipment, given that it had said in January that sales were expected to double the pace of the global economy.

Renomar will continue operation of the wind farms of Arriel (Vilafranca) and Folch II (Castellfort) wind farms, with 43 wind turbines, despite a closure order on the Environment, "until a final decision." The company behind the wind turbines has appealed arguing the closure order "does not conform to law nor to reality." The May 30 order demanded the stay of the two wind parks in the Wind Zone 3 of the Plan de la Comunidad Valenciana, due to the high mortality of vultures recorded. The two parks have a Declaration of Environmental Impact (DIA), which adopted its own conselleria. The company insists it has complied with all environmental measures that have been demanded including "painting the blades of wind turbines with zebra" stripes as well as conducting several studies on the impact of birds prior to the installation of the windmills ".

Stocks of companies that generate electricity from solar or wind power -- or make the equipment to do so -- soared during the last three years. But the global credit crunch, higher prices for raw materials like polysilicon used in solar panels, and cuts in government subsidies to consumers, such as in Germany last month, have made investors much warier. High oil prices, analysts say, can't compensate for all that. "Some months ago, it was still true that a rising tide lifts all the boats," said Thomas Germann, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank. "But investors are now scrutinizing what's going on at the company level, because cost efficiency has become more important." ..."The easy money has been made," said Jean Ryan, who oversees three funds with about €2 billion in assets at KBC Asset Management International Ltd., a unit of Belgium-based KBC Group NV.

Sapec SA, the third-largest supplier of crop-protection products on the Iberian Peninsula, plans to raise cash for construction of U.S. wind farms by selling other alternative-energy projects after they are completed this year. ...The wind farm projects in the U.S. are facing delays amid uncertainty about the extension of renewable-energy tax credits and problems getting the turbines from Spain, according to Velge. Naturener, which had planned to install 210 megawatts of capacity in Montana this year, will complete only 107 megawatts of the Glacier Wind project this year. The first project in Canada will not be completed until 2010, rather than in 2009.

Babcock & Brown Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Phil Green is under increasing pressure to sell European wind farms to stave off a possible debt review, triggered by a share collapse this week. ...A successful sale could trigger a rebound in Babcock's shares, which trade at less than three times earnings after falling 83 percent this year, said ABN Amro Holdings NV analyst John Heagerty. Failure may increase the risk of banks demanding early repayment on A$2.8 billion of debt.