Bowing to public pressure, Florida Power & Light Co. has dropped its plan to put 400-foot-tall wind turbines on public, waterfront parks, company officials said Wednesday. Instead, it wants to build three on land owned by the state and the South Florida Water Management District and six on FPL property at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. ...Indian River Drive resident Sandy Steinruck said she's still concerned the wind turbine construction will damage valuable wildlife habitat. "We've seen in Colorado the damage and the mess they create," she said.

Florida Power & Light Company has amended applications it filed in St. Lucie County to rezone properties proposed for wind turbine locations. The amended plans will remove four turbine sites previously under consideration at John Brooks and Frederick Douglass Parks and propose placing six wind turbines on property FPL currently owns at the St. Lucie nuclear power plant. The remaining three turbines are proposed for a parcel of undeveloped state-owned land adjoining the plant’s property to the north. ...

More than 1300 miles from home, standing in a cow pasture outside Abilene, Texas, Doug Anderson goes in search of windmills. This field trip is a bit of a departure for Anderson, who works as St. Lucie County's administrator. "We went out there to report back to the folks in the local community and come back with a factual report, and unbiased report," he says. ...Of course while windmills may work in the pastures of West Texas, Anderson admits the beaches of South Florida present a very different picture.

St. Lucie County Commission Chairman Joe Smith climbed, looked at and listened to windmills in Texas on Wednesday and said afterward, "nothing I saw made me nervous." ...He compared the noise to the sound of an airplane flying overhead. But the sound isn't loud enough to prevent conversation. "Standing at the base, there was a hum from the windmill," he said. "When the wind blows, you hear it more than the hum." The wind was blowing 8 miles per hour, so he couldn't tell if they're noisier at higher wind speeds.

County Administrator Doug Anderson and Commission Chairman Joe Smith, along with a videographer, will travel to Abilene, Texas, next week to view Florida Power & Light's Horse Hollow Wind Energy Centers, which have more than 400 wind turbines on almost 60,000 acres in two counties. Other commissioners have not committed to going, but may still join the trip, according to a county spokesman. FPL's proposal to put nine wind turbines on Hutchinson Island in St. Lucie County - four potentially on public land - has been a divisive issue. Those against the project protested during a tour of the possible sites in December and have been vocal in meetings and in letters and e-mails to county commissioners.

Throughout the year, utility regulators held meetings on how to increase the amount of energy the state gets from renewable sources. "When you look at the need the state has, we have a growing energy demand, and we need to balance how we meet that demand with cost, energy security, energy diversification ... a number of things we've done over the past two years puts us in a better place," said Lisa Edgar, outgoing chairwoman of the five-member PSC. "It's certainly been an exciting year for energy issues, and I think the commission has done good work." And on the final day of the year Monday, state legislators will get a list of recommendations from the Florida Energy Commission to take up during the legislative session. "This was really a historical year for Florida. How do we continue the momentum?" Smith said. "There are a lot of folks that can be obstructionist to where the governor goes - the state legislature and the utilities are going to be big players in that.

Several dozen people took Florida Power & Light Co. up on its offer to show off potential sites for wind turbines on the island ...Residents, many opposed to the project, fired questions at FPL officials, asking about the effect of the turbines on birds and the environment, shadows and noise, and questioning why St. Lucie County was picked to be the first place in the state for the wind machines. On occasion, protesters challenged statements made by FPL, including claims the noise level will be at about 35 decibels (quiet enough to hold a conversation underneath them) and that shadows would be only a limited problem at dusk and dawn.

Dozens of people, some wielding protest signs, showed up Friday morning as commissioners toured two sites where Florida Power & Light Co. wants to place wind turbines. Drawing the most ire from residents is a proposal to place four of the wind machines, which stretch more than 400 feet in height when a blade is fully extended, on public land at John Brooks and Frederick Douglass parks. The other five would be on FPL land near the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant. The crowd of people surrounded FPL officials at the two sites, firing off questions about the environmental impacts, the noise and the feasibility of the turbines working in Florida. "I just didn't expect there would be this kind of response," said Commissioner Paula Lewis, one of three county commissioners who took part in the tours.

Jane Brooks, who has been active for 30 years in conservation efforts and worked with her husband for the state to buy the property, said she favors alternative energy sources but not on public beaches. She cited a management plan that says John Brooks Park was purchased to "maintain the land in as natural a state as possible" and to "preserve a section of coastline from further development, protect its native plants and animals and provide recreational opportunities for the people of St. Lucie County." Coward said that allowing wind turbines contradicts promises made to voters when they approved a bond issue to buy beach access for preservation and recreation.

County commissioners expressed support Tuesday for bringing wind turbines to Hutchinson Island, but were divided over whether to put them on public land. Florida Power & Light Co. has proposed up to nine turbines, which would be the first of their kind in the state, at several different locations on the island. Four would be on public land and the other five would be located at the St. Lucie Nuclear Plant, the first on the grounds of a nuclear plant site in the United States.

John Brooks fought hard to keep parts of Hutchinson Island in its natural state, free of golf courses and condos, his daughter says. Now Dickie Brooks worries a proposal to place wind turbines on the island in public parks — one named for her father — could go against the spirit of his conservation efforts. "My concern is that various people, my father included, have managed to purchase and preserve a very limited number of miles of Florida beach in its natural state for public use," Dickie Brooks said. "I really am opposed to any use of those beach properties which doesn't directly benefit the public's enjoyment of the quintessential Florida beach experience."

FPL wants to build six turbines at Hutchinson Island, where it operates a pair of nuclear generators on waterfront property. Some of the turbines would be on FPL's property and the rest on an adjacent county-owned park, if the county approves. ...According to FPL, though, the Sunshine State and most of the Southeast don't have sustained winds that are strong enough to generate electricity except within a half-mile of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from North Carolina to Texas. A fact sheet from subsidiary FPL Energy LLC shows average winds range between 11.5 and 14.3 mph along the coasts, but drop to less than 12.5 mph everywhere else in the southeastern states.

Florida Power & Light Co. wants to put some of its proposed windmills on beach property owned by St. Lucie County as well as on company-owned land near the nuclear power plant on South Hutchinson Island, a company official said Wednesday.

But despite its success for investors, wind power has some way to go before being a major part of the U.S. energy supply. Although the country has seen rapid growth in wind power over the past three years, the technology provides less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity. ... The issue has split the environmental community. Although the emission-free technology is cleaner than coal, oil and natural gas, for certain conservationists the impact on nature is too severe to overlook.

Driscoll said the ocean energy has the potential to supply the world's energy demands thousands of times over, significantly reducing greenhouse gases within 10 years, and long-term, creating thousands of jobs for a highly skilled work force, changing the state from an energy importer to energy exporter. Research must still be done to determine the impact on sea life, he added.

"We're working with the county's Growth Management Department on what the requirements are for getting permits," said Nick Blount, FPL's Treasure Coast spokesman. He said St. Lucie County was selected because of wind conditions here, but the company doesn't expect to generate a lot of electricity. "We don't expect the wind turbines to turn but about 20 percent of the time," he said. "That's why there are no wind mills in the southeast and the closest is in West Virginia. "Windmills will never be a sole source of power," he said.

But what if you're an electric company and you need to get more mileage out of your power plants because you can't build the new coal plant you were counting on? For Florida Power & Light Co., the state's largest utility, that's the multibillion-dollar question: How to keep the juice flowing to what in a few years will be a customer base of 10 million people - 10 million people who run the air conditioner almost all year long and who are attached to all sorts of electronic gadgets......Attractive as renewables might be, they've got a long way to go to make up a substantial part of FPL's energy supply. For instance, the company would need 8,000 wind turbines or 20 square miles of solar photovoltaic panels to equal the amount of power that would have been generated by the proposed Glades County coal plant. "Ultimately, it's a small amount of generation," said Bedley of Apex Power.

NEW YORK - Companies investing in renewable energy may begin asking a familiar question following FPL Group Inc.'s second-quarter results: What happens when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine? Though the utility company's earnings rose 72 percent to $405 million, and analysts are still saying "Buy," according to Thomson Financial's consensus estimates, FPL faced the worst weather conditions in 13 years for its wind-energy division. The wind factor cut FPL's profit by $50 million. "The only real negative in the quarter was the poor wind resource," said FPL Chief Financial Officer Moray Dewhurst during a conference call.

The power firm also raises its 2008 earnings expectations to $3.70 to $3.90 a share from the previous range of $3.60 to $3.80 per share, based on its new expectations of additional wind capacity. FPL Energy now expects to add at least 2,000 megawatts of new wind to its portfolio by the end of 2008. Currently, FPL Energy has more than 1,000 megawatts of new wind projects under construction, all of which are expected to reach commercial operation by the end of the year. "FPL Group delivered very good results overall in the second quarter... despite unfavorable weather impact at both FPL Energy and FPL," the company said. "FPL's results were hurt by very weak cooling degree day comparisons, while FPL Energy's wind portfolio experienced its worst quarter in at least the last 13 years in terms of wind resource availability. Together, these weather effects amounted to over $50 million of lower earnings for the quarter.

Gov. Charlie Crist's push to be green could mean more nuclear plants in Florida. The word "nuclear" does not appear in any of the three executive orders Crist signed at the close of his global warming summit Friday ordering tighter vehicle emission standards and a reduction of greenhouse gases. But he, as well as power utilities, are planning for more nuclear energy in the future. And the sweeping greenhouse gas reductions Crist embraced this week may solidify more nuclear power as a cornerstone of Florida's energy policy.