Idaho Power Co. and Rocky Mountain Power, who want to snake a $7 billion network of 190-foot transmission towers across the West, face a tangled matrix of state and local barriers as challenging as the hardships faced by the pioneers who traveled much the same route on the Oregon Trail a century and a half ago. ..."These are projects everybody needs and nobody wants," said Lisa Grow, Idaho Power's vice president for transmission.

Now, three species in Idaho have the potential to be listed as endangered within just a few years. If any is granted federal protection, it could drastically change the nature of development across much of the West, where the open sagebrush-covered lands are still often the focus of development. A critical mass of conflicting factors is on the horizon as the growing energy needs of the West and a concerted push to develop wind energy land squarely in the front yard of two of the regions' most sensitive species.

There is a big concern about global warming and a lot of the Democratic leadership has expressed significant concerns about global warming. But at the end of the day, if you're concerned about global warming, one has to look at nuclear. If you look at a 1000-megawatt nuclear plant, it takes about 500 acres. If you look at a 1,000 megawatt solar plant, it takes about 40,000 acres. If you have a 1,000 megawatt wind farm, it's about 150,000 acres. For baseline generation, it's going to come down to coal and nuclear, and we need them both. It's not one or the other. No matter who is in the presidency or in Congress, we need a sound energy program, and it will likely involve nuclear.

Boise-based Windland, Inc. working in partnership with Shell Wind Energy recently completed a four-year permitting process with the Bureau of Land Management to OK a massive wind turbine power project on BLM land in the Cotterel Mountains near Albion, Idaho. Once completed, the Cotterel Wind Power Project will comprise 98, 300-foot-tall towers equipped with swirling white propellers stretching along 14 miles of ridgeline. Cotterel will provide enough energy to power 50,000 homes, roughly the number of homes in Twin Falls and Jerome and Gooding counties combined. If completed, the project will be the largest wind farm built on federal lands in the last 25 years.

As the U.S. tries to reduce the climate change spurred by the warming of the atmosphere because of increasing carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, alternative forms of energy production will be necessary. And yet, it doesn't make sense to trample sensitive ecosystems in the new rush to develop alternative energies. It would be an oxymoronic case of destroying the Earth in order to save it.