People may not want them in their backyard, but some of us would love some closure on the wind turbine debate. This just in: Don't hold your breath. I'm reliably informed not to expect a public meeting about the turbines before the end of January. And that's in spite of pressure late last week from the Governor's Office in Tallahassee, no less.

A majority of county commissioners now are against putting wind turbines at Blind Creek Park, which sends a "strong signal" to Florida Power & Light Co. they should reconsider the site, Commission Chairman Joe Smith said Friday. Commissioner Paula Lewis said Friday she is against FPL putting three wind machines on the state-owned land that is managed by the county. She said she was swayed by staff memos that said it would be impossible to replace the unique archaeological and ecological land lost at Blind Creek Park by the project. "Staff's input was there was no way to replace Blind Creek," she said. "It just isn't the place." ...Grande said he thinks it's still worth having a commission meeting devoted solely to the project and said he would definitely cast a vote one way or the other at that time. "If we turn it down, we should turn it down as quickly as possible," he said.

Opponents of Florida Power & Light Co.'s plan to put wind turbines on South Hutchinson Island still hope to have a large crowd at tonight's St. Lucie County Commission meeting even though a majority of commissioners have said they oppose building the turbines on public land. "We're trying to get our people out, but many have the impression we've already prevailed," said Julie Zahniser of the Save St. Lucie Alliance. ...Tonight's vote deals only with FPL's request for three wind turbines on the public conservation lands. FPL also wants to build six wind turbines on its own property at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.

If a few people get their way, a few more windmills will dot the Broward landscape in the next few years -- more as a symbol of the county's agrarian roots and a nod to environmental sensitivity than a true alternative power source.

I simply can't get past the feeling the wool's being pulled over our eyes by FPL. I base this on gut reaction and online research. From what I can see, this project has much more going for it in PR/political/financial terms than anything remotely to do with energy production. Why? The site is way too small to offer any sensible economic advantage. Yes, it might tell FPL whether wind power along Florida's coast is viable, but I suspect they know it isn't already. A Department of the Interior study puts all of Florida's coastline firmly in the "marginal" category. Even if turbines did produce meaningful amounts of electricity, experience in Europe (about 10 years ahead of us in energy policy terms) suggests it may be more trouble than it's worth. ...So if it's not useful, practical or financially rewarding, why on earth is FPL so hell-bent on building turbines here? My guess is that with federal tax credits, tax write-offs for depreciation and so on, it may actually be more lucrative for utilities not to produce power.

The news last week that Florida Power & Light has abandoned a quest to site wind turbines on St. Lucie County public beach land must have come as a relief to some. To the rest of us, it provided more questions than answers. Why, for instance, would FPL now subject itself to even more environmental scrutiny on state-owned land? Wouldn't that put back their timetable even more than using county-owned sites? And why is FPL only looking at a grand total of nine windmills here? Look at their other wind farm operations in Texas and California, where turbines number in the hundreds or thousands. ...I still don't get it. Our tiny project will never generate enough juice to make a dent in demand. Folks in St. Lucie aren't happy at using public land for windmills. Yes, we might find out that Florida wind is strong enough, but the scale is all wrong even if that's the case.

Perhaps FPL is right. Perhaps the majority of St. Lucians could care less if the company wants to play at windmills on its own land. But I have to wonder if the survey questions weren't just a little, shall we say, skewed? It's well-known in market research circles that how you ask the questions can be as important as the questions themselves. FPL's survey, for instance, made no distinction as to where phone respondents lived — the island or inland? I suspect few of the "yes" votes came from Hutchinson Island. FPL also didn't seem to want to hear from people who rarely vote in general elections. And they didn't bother to find out exactly what 20 percent of the "yes" voters meant by being only "somewhat" supportive.

This morning's St. Lucie Board of County Commission meeting could see the end of the Florida Power & Light wind turbine project on Hutchinson Island. But don't bet on it. Rumor has it some commissioners would prefer to "punt" and delay a decision until they have more information. ...The wind turbine opposition comes from a multitude of angles: the 40-story height and appearance of the towers and their whirling blades wider than a jumbo jet; the possibly lethal effects on wildlife (especially birds); the unpleasant "strobe" effects spinning turbine blades tend to have on those living nearby; the noise that's been described as like a wrapped brick in a clothes dryer; reduction in property values; the possible safety threat to the nuclear plant from what's attractively called "blade throw," should one ever come off in high winds. Hey, it's happened.

Two St. Lucie Nuclear Plant employees have raised safety concerns about wind turbines damaging the plant, but Florida Power & Light Co. officials maintain there is no danger. The concerns are raised in internal documents from FPL that were sent anonymously to County Attorney Dan McIntyre on Thursday. ...One of the messages recommends discontinuing the project on FPL property. A manager posted a response to the messages Aug. 23, noting the exact locations of the turbines still was to be determined and a safety study was underway.

A new study projects average wind speeds on Hutchinson Island would be strong enough for Florida Power & Light Co.'s wind turbine plan to work, the company announced Tuesday. The study was done by WindLogics Inc., a company owned by FPL Energy, a sister company to FPL. The findings project the average wind speed would be 13.8 mph, enough to generate 13.8 megawatts of power or enough electricity for about 3,600 people, according to a company news release. ...Julie Zahniser, head of the Save St. Lucie Alliance, and others opposed to the project said they believe there is not enough wind to make the turbines economically viable, that they would be built in an environmentally-sensitive location and that it's going to devalue local properties.

Large-scale power from the sun is finally gaining traction in Florida. And FPL is building solar plants in its home state, for the first time in the company's 79-year history. ...Though solar power is an expanding part of Florida Power & Light's agenda, the three new plants will generate far less power than conventional sources. After the three natural-gas units at West County Energy Center are complete in 2011, they will produce 3,750 megawatts of power - 34 times as much electricity as all three solar plants combined.

Three Florida Power & Light Co. wind turbines could be built amid human remains and Ais Indian artifacts that an archaeologist hired by St. Lucie County found in Blind Creek Park. Archaeologist Bob Carr called the area a "prehistoric cemetery," though only scattered bones and no skeletons were found. Ceramic pottery and shells also were discovered. "It was obviously a big campground," Mosquito Control Director Jim David said. "There clearly was camping and fishing and oystering there." ..."The survey was part of the state requirements before we removed exotic species with heavy equipment," David said.

The bulk of the $9.5 million raised in FPL's Sunshine Energy Program between 2004 and 2007 was paid to a contractor in Texas for salaries, office expenses, business travel, research, marketing and a public relations consultant to administer the program, according to the audit findings. Auditors estimated that the contractor, Green Mountain, has spent about $2.2 million - 25.9 percent - to purchase and develop renewable energy. ... The Public Service Commission's probe of the program began in September with requests to the company for documents and explanations. FPL repeatedly responded by filing records under seal, saying the requested documents were "proprietary business information" and "contractual vendor data."

Last week, Florida Power & Light Co. killed plans to build three wind turbines on a publicly owned St. Lucie County beach - just hours before county commissioners had scheduled a vote to oppose the project. Who says the state's biggest utility can't see the light? Now the utility can move forward with plans to build six 40-story windmills on its own oceanfront land near the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. That should have been the approach all along. Instead, FPL tried to put another three windmills at Blind Creek Park, public land north of the nuclear plant that had been bought for preservation.

Much as I like the idea of using these nontraditional methods for power generation, we need a dose of facts when anyone comes forward to propose such changes in power supplies. For example, wind is certainly a non-carbon source, but it's not a non-polluter. ...we also need to keep the "law of unintended consequences" in mind. We need to add these sources to both fossil and nuclear plants and traditional generation systems, which work without wind or sunshine.

For Barney Bishop, president of the Tallahassee-based Associated Industries of Florida, it's too much, too soon. "We're willing to go in the same direction the governor wants to go, but he wants to go 100 miles per hour, and we want to go 50 miles per hour," Bishop said. "They talk about, 'we can do this, we can do that,' but they just assume people are going to be willing to pay the costs." Bishop wants a cost-benefit analysis for the governor's plan, and argued that Florida won't benefit from any push to curb greenhouse gas emissions if the states around it don't do something similar.

For some time, Florida Power & Light has been trying to join the green energy revolution. Prodded first by the governor's direction to diversify its fuel sources, and later by the governor's incentive programs for green energy, FPL has tried a variety of projects with mixed results at best. ...In the face of its own assertions that wind was not practical in Florida, and the independent studies showing there was enough wind for the latest model turbines only on the oceanfront, FPL persisted in proposing wind turbines at its St Lucie nuclear site.

Florida critics of offshore oil drilling say rigs would blight Gulf of Mexico vistas. So imagine a different kind of energy-harnessing rig looming over offshore waters: windmills hundreds of feet tall, with three-prong blades slicing through the sky to generate relatively pollution-free electricity.

The county commissioner who was most supportive of bringing wind turbines to the county is now against it. Commissioner Chris Craft, who encouraged Florida Power & Light Co. to look at the county for its wind turbine proposal, announced during Tuesday's commission meeting that he no longer supports the project. He said his decision wasn't based on the debate over public lands but on whether it would have a net positive effect for the environment. "I think this has been and will continue to be the most important issue we have debated on this board," Craft said.

St. Lucie County Commissioner Paula Lewis said Thursday that she won't support wind turbines in Blind Creek Park and became the third of five commissioners to speak against the project. "Conservation lands are just not the place for wind turbines," Lewis said. "I'm still pondering whether wind turbines should be allowed other places in the county." Lewis' decision means a majority of commissioners oppose the project and it would lose if the board voted today. It's not clear what effect commission rejection of the project would have on state reviews of Florida Power & Light's proposal.