To his chagrin, some of Mr. Myers's fellow environmentalists are helping power companies pinpoint the best sites for solar-power technology. The goal of his former allies is to combat climate change by harnessing the desert's solar-rich terrain, reducing the region's reliance on carbon-emitting fuels. Mr. Myers is indignant. "How can you say you're going to blade off hundreds of thousands of acres of earth to preserve the Earth?" he said. As the Obama administration puts development of geothermal, wind and solar power on a fast track, the environmental movement finds itself torn between fighting climate change and a passion for saving special places.

A 5-mile swath of the proposed path through Chino Hills would double the size of existing, though inactive, Edison power lines to about 200 feet, and about 1,000 residents would live within 500 feet of the power lines. Residents and city officials said they are concerned about the large electrical towers possibly falling over or near homes during an earthquake or high winds and the potential for adverse health impacts from the electromagnetic fields created by the power lines.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is urging the U.S. Department of Interior to stop processing applications for more than a dozen solar energy projects sought on Mojave Desert land that was donated to the government by a conservation group. Feinstein, D-Calif., is preparing legislation to protect about 600,000 acres of former railroad company land deeded to the federal government.

Residents - attending a public hearing on the project held by the California Public Utilities Commission - are riled over a Southern California Edison plan to enlarge and energize towers and lines that cut through the city. The entire 250-mile Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, proposed by Edison, aims to bring green energy from wind farms in Central California to the Los Angeles Basin and is part of a state initiative toward using more sustainable energy.

This news report was submitted to Windaction.org by Scott Jackson, a reseller of Redriven windmills. Mr. Jackson is seeking to get the Redriven turbine de-certified in the State of California for safety reasons.

Environmentalists, renewable energy developers, and regulatory officials on Tuesday hammered out ways to build solar, wind and geothermal projects in the Mojave Desert and still preserve the ecosystem. "It will be a challenge to strike that balance... but it can be done," said Kevin Hunting, of the state Department of Fish and Game.

A land conservancy from Oak Glen spent years amassing $45 million in private donations and negotiating the purchase of more than a half-million unspoiled acres in the California desert so it could be turned over to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for protection. Now, the BLM is considering applications for wind turbines and solar-energy arrays on thousands of those acres.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has proposed another route for its controversial Green Path North project that would bypass pristine desert land in the High Desert and closely parallel the 10 Freeway. The newly proposed route, about 80 miles in length, would run 230-kilovolt power lines westward from just below Desert Hot Springs in Riverside County to Lytle Creek. ...Environmentalists, however, still remain wary. The new route could impact about 370 properties along the 10 Freeway, 16 of which are homes.

Opponents of a wind power project planned for a ridge near Burney gathered outside of the Shasta County administration building Friday to voice their concerns about eagles that will be killed and land that will be altered by giant turbines on Hatchet Ridge. "That's our sacred land and it's going to go away," said James Hayward Sr., one of the protest's organizers and co-chair of the Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites. The protest of the 103-megawatt Hatchet Ridge Wind Project drew about 100 people, many of them members of American Indian tribes, and lasted for about an hour.

Wildlife researcher Jim Wiegand says "Green energy is a cover up and a lie because birds of prey are getting killed, people wouldn't believe how these turbines chop them up." Many members of the Pit River Tribe were among the protestors outside the Shasta County Administration Center touting the deadly effects wind turbines have on birds, particularly bald eagles.

Saying its blades will leave eagle blood in the air and on the ground, opponents of the Hatchet Ridge Wind Project are planning a protest rally. "It just really needs to be relooked at," said Radley Davis, a member of the Pit River Tribe and one of the protest organizers. The protest will be at noon Friday in front of the Shasta County Administration Center, organizers said.

But the company behind one of the two wind energy projects completed last year in California, which formally dedicates the project today, doesn't expect more than a handful of these projects to be built in California in the near future. ...Other states are eager to provide wind energy to Californians. A consultant's report presented to the California Energy Commission in late 2008 noted that large wind farms in Wyoming, Washington, Utah and Oregon are emerging as sources for municipal utilities seeking to meet state renewable standards.

Miller, who is president of Friends of Big Morongo Canyon Preserve, told the attendees that Los Angeles citizens are opposing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's Green Path project, especially as it could be a threat to Joshua Tree National Park. One plan to foil the energy path is to legally declare Big Morongo Canyon Preserve as a protected wilderness attached to Joshua Tree National Park, where no power lines are allowed. That would disrupt the contiguous transmission towers in one Green Path North alternative proposed by the Los Angeles power company.

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously today to make it easier for energy firms to test for suitability for wind turbines in rural areas. ...

California increasingly is depending on solar energy to meet its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the state's landmark 2006 global warming law. According to regulators, utilities received 30% more bids for solar power projects in 2008 than in the previous year while wind farm proposals dropped by half and "very few" geothermal tenders were filed. The fact that utilities received 24,000 megawatts' worth of renewable energy bids last year (more than enough, if built, to meet the 33% renewable energy target) speaks to the frothy state of the market.

The Lompoc Wind Farm was on the supervisors' plate this Tuesday after neighbors of the project site, George and Cheryl Bedford, and the California Department of Fish and Game filed appeals of its unanimous approval at the County Planning Commission last fall. The latter objected to the undeniable impact that the wind turbines, with their 135-foot blades approaching 200 miles per hour at the tip, would have on bird and bat populations. The former was more concerned about the desecration of viewsheds and noise pollution.

Santa Barbara County's first renewable wind-energy project, which proponents say could provide enough electricity to serve up to 50,000 homes, was given hands-down approval Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors. The supervisors agreed that the benefits of having a wind farm southwest of Lompoc far outweighed the unavoidable environmental impacts it will bring. ..."I look at these monsters and I don't like them, but they're part of making wind energy, and I guess they're needed," said 5th District Supervisor Joe Centeno.

The proposed wind energy project is before the board because two appeals were filed - by Lompoc area residents George and Cheryl Bedford and the California Department of Fish and Game - after it was approved by the county Planning Commission in September. As it stands, the project was given the green light for a maximum of 65 wind turbines.

One of the world's leading turbine manufacturers is to make 11% of its workforce redundant as windfarm developers put on the brakes in the face of a global economic slowdown. Clipper Windpower said in a trading update that 90 staff would be laid off and production levels cut by up to a fifth but insisted that work on a giant turbine for the North Sea, which is supported by the Crown Estate, would be unaffected.

Should wind turbines hundreds of feet tall -higher than the existing Kumeyaay wind farm turbines- be allowed in the rural McCain Valley/Boulevard region in East County? Does the nation's critical need for "green" energy outweigh the concerns of residents seeking to preserve the rural character of their backcountry communities? With new industrial-scale wind farms proposed across America, East County Magazine's Gayle Early set out on a quest to explore these issues in depth for our three-part series on wind energy.