In May, 62 wind turbines started sending electricity from southern Washington state to the Turlock Irrigation District. Next year, a nearby wind project in northern Oregon will start supplying the Modesto Irrigation District. ...Outsourcing renewable power irks some activists. "It totally takes the focus off building our green-tech economy," said Laura Wisland, a clean energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley.

At the State Capitol, boosting the use of solar power, wind generators and other renewable energy sources is seen as a boon for both the environment and the economy in electricity-hungry California. But with two weeks left in the legislative session, Democrats are hustling to fulfill a commitment they made to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pass a law to require all utilities to get a third of their power from "green" sources by 2020.

California's electric utilities have accepted that they'll be required to get a third of their power from renewable sources by 2020. Now, they are battling environmental and labor groups over where it's going to come from. Utilities say they can't meet the 2020 goal unless the state allows them relatively free access to renewable power generated far beyond the state's borders, in places like Wyoming and British Columbia.

The Tehama County Planning Commission Thursday approved a use permit for a series of 330-foot meteorological test towers outside Mineral. With use permits issued for as many as five towers to test the feasibility of installing wind turbines, Padoma Windpower has been granted the authority to build and keep the towers on Sierra Pacific land for as many as 36 months.

A recent National Academy of Sciences study predicts that significant scientific advances and changes in electricity generation, transmission and use are needed before the United States will be able to produce 50 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources. Four Siskiyou County residents involved with renewable energy and sustainability were asked to comment on the report. Without exception, they criticized the report as ignoring conservation, and they voiced support for localized renewable energy sources.

One controversial power line project through the north state has been halted, but state agencies, municipal utilities and power companies are studying other potential new north state lines. Examining how to connect the state to developing renewable power, the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) recently released a report that shows a potential new power transmission line running from the Oregon border through Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties and south to Tracy.

A Crescent City wind ordinance seems to be as elusive as the breeze a turbine tries to catch. More than a year after the Planning Commission decided to write a new law that would allow small wind energy systems within city limits, the board delayed taking a final vote on the proposed guidelines to allow more time for revisions. "They have some lingering concerns about setbacks and noise," Crescent City Planner Michele Rambo said.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. says it plans to build a substation in the southeast corner of the county that will allow it to increase its use of wind and solar power. The substation, to be built near Jacumba, will take electricity from wind projects in the mountains of East County and northern Baja California and put it onto the Southwest Powerlink.

A controversial new medical study gaining supporters claims living close to windmills can give you migraines and panic attacks. These windmills are at the center of a medical debate brought on by this controversial new study. Dr. Nina Pierpont in New York lists a dozen possible health problems ranging from migraines to panic attacks. She calls it "wind turbine syndrome." Spinning windmill blades allegedly cause a vibration we can't hear. ...Ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. Syed Ahsan at Eisenhower Medical Center weighs in.

Wind turbines may become part of the landscape among the high powered antennas out at the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in the future, but the project is on hold for now. Military officials are conducting tests due to concerns that the wind turbines may interfere with military activity in the area, according to Dennis Mullen, energy conservation manager at Goldstone.

Wind turbines should be producing power atop Hatchet Ridge overlooking Burney early next summer. Initially, the 44 planned turbines had been scheduled to start spinning by the end of the year, but an overhaul of the company planning the project has delayed it for six months, said George Hardie, senior developer for Pattern Energy Group.

A Washington wind farm that its developer calls “one of the premier wind sites in the Pacific Northwest” has been sold to a group of California utilities. ...Why is California buying made-in-Washington wind power? California has much higher electricity rates than Washington, so the wind power premium is proportionately cheaper.

The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission denied a Lompoc resident's attempt to waylay an alternative energy project Wednesday, but approved the first step for a senior housing development in Old Town Orcutt. The commission unanimously denied an appeal that took issue with temporary meteorological towers that are part of a renewable wind-energy project southwest of Lompoc.

The plan to build a 600 miles high-voltage power line across Northern California is officially dead, the agency behind the project concluded early Wednesday. The $1.5 billion project had been proposed to move electricity from future wind, solar and geothermal projects in Lassen County to power customers in urban areas.

A number of meteorological towers, designed to collect wind and weather conditions, dot Lassen County and Northeastern California, but the United States Bureau of Land Management has not yet moved any proposed wind turbine projects forward. Jeff Fontana, a public information officer for the BLM, said a plan of development from Invenergy was returned to the developer after the federal agency requested modifications.

Sharon Reid and her husband, Dewitt, a retired Marine major, pay $170 in a typical month ---- and some months more than $230 ---- to cool and light their 2,000-square-foot, tri-level home in Vista. Without making any changes in lifestyle, their electricity bill is likely to increase by $45 a month on average as California overhauls its power grid and tries to shift the source of one-third of its electricity from fossil fuels to green sources by 2020.

The City Council is trying to craft rules for electricity-generating wind energy systems that won't divide the city's residents into warring camps of "wind energy advocates" and NIMNBYs: "Not in my neighbor's back yard." So far, it's been tough to find a happy medium.

The biggest backer of a proposed high-voltage power line through Northern California may have abandoned the project, putting its future in doubt, but the fight hasn't left power line opponents, who marched and rallied Wednesday in Redding. Nearly 200 green-shirted "Stop TANC" activists filled a Holiday Inn ballroom, where they heard reports from power line opponents who had traveled from as far as Davis.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District announced last week that it would no longer support a widely vilified, $1.5 billion proposal to build a 600-mile stretch of high-voltage transmission lines through the state. ...The public works project in question -- one of the West's largest in recent history -- would extend from yet-to-be-developed wind and solar farms in the northeastern part of the state.

Burbank Water and Power officials are urging the City Council to oppose legislation that would force them to produce a third of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, arguing the requirements would drive up utility rates and strain existing electric transmission assets that the state is in short supply of.