State energy officials are gauging interest from developers who would build an offshore farm of electricity-generating, skyscraper-sized wind turbines off the Worcester coastline. "The question is, how do we tap into the wind resources that we've got?" said Maryland Energy Administration Director Malcolm D. Woolf.

The state began its pursuit of offshore wind generation Tuesday, a move that could lead to building 400-foot-tall turbines off Ocean City. The Maryland Energy Administration asked wind developers to express their interest in building industrial-size windmills a dozen or more miles off the state's 31-mile coastline. At the same time, the energy agency said it is launching a study to gauge the economic viability and environmental impact of such a project.

St. Mary's County Commission President Francis Jack Russell (D) met with the Chesapeake Bay Critical Areas Commission last week where he hoped the local ordinance allowing personal wind turbines on the county's shoreline would find little resistance. But the state put another 90-day hold on the ordinance. The local process began a year ago in April and wind turbines were approved in the county zoning ordinance in December.

Legislation aiming to put Maryland back toward regulating electricity supply in Maryland is facing turbulence and hurdles in the House of Delegates. The bill, which has the backing of Gov. Martin O'Malley, seeks to return authority over supply that was lost by the state's Public Service Commission after Maryland lawmakers deregulated electricity markets in 1999.

Wayne Spiggle is like many people who feel that harnessing the wind's energy to generate electricity is "a good thing." "But when you realize that to do that changes the character of our traditional, natural landscape, most people want to know that it's worthwhile to sacrifice that," said Spiggle, president of the Mineral County (W.Va.) Commission. Spiggle said an apparent lack of investors and a low efficiency rating combine to compel him to question the viability of industrial wind energy facilities.

The 426th session of the Maryland General Assembly is winding down in Annapolis. But with just a little more than two weeks left, numerous bills introduced by local lawmakers have either not yet been acted upon or died in committees. All of the wind turbine related bills introduced by Del. Wendell Beitzel received unfavorable reports from the House Economic Matters Committee last week. The bills would have provided local and statewide standards for commercial turbines.

They were outnumbered more than 2-to-1. The people who spoke Thursday evening in favor of amendments to Allegany County's zoning code regarding wind energy - 15 people - were far fewer than those who opposed them - 37 people. But 70 percent of the people who wanted the county commissioners to reject wind energy restrictions were not from Allegany County or a contiguous county.

In a typically airless conference room in downtown Baltimore yesterday, the Public Service Commission fast-tracked a proposal for a wind farm in Western Maryland. "Fast," though, is a relative term given that developers have as long as three years to start construction and five for the first turbine to actually start harnessing those mountain breezes and turning them into electricity.

Two years after Maryland legislators passed a law designed to breeze wind power projects through regulatory reviews, the state still has no active wind farms and the opponents of the 2007 bill are still fighting the change. ...Former state senator and former Frostburg mayor John Bambacus told a panel of legislators that the new law "totally gutted the regulatory process." Bambacus says public input is exceptionally important because wind turbines "are not benign structures," noting some are as "tall as the Washington monument."

Sen. George Edwards and Delegate Wendell Beitzel are trying both approaches by filing a handful of bills to repeal all or parts of a 2007 law that streamlined the regulatory and review process for industrial wind turbine facilities. Edwards' Senate Bill 583, cross-filed with House Bill 605 by Beitzel, would mandate that any industrial wind energy facility go through the full review process ..."There's a lot of controversy back home over whether there's enough opportunity now for input from the public," Edwards told the Times-News this week while in Annapolis. "We felt that one way to try to resolve that is to try to repeal (SB) 566 and go back to what was in place prior to passage of SB 566, which sort of short-cuts the process."

Allegany County should introduce legislation to manage industrial and residential wind turbines "as expeditiously as possible," according to a report produced by County Planning Coordinator Phil Hager and colleagues. That's exactly what some high-profile wind energy opponents have been requesting for months. ...

Despite living in a state that hopes to become a leader in energy efficiency, people like the Flesches are discovering that obtaining approval to install turbines is difficult. The struggle is not with the state or even the power companies. The struggle is with county and local governments - many of which do not have laws in effect to deal with wind turbines.

The Allegany County Planning and Zoning Commission on Wednesday resumed discussion of the bonding and interference policies related to potential commercial or industrial wind energy installations. ...At issue is the bond amount the county could require wind energy companies to post. Hager presented a draft proposal to the county's zoning text that would require a $150,000 bond until an abandoned wind turbine has been taken down and the land restored similar to its original condition.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has garnered national attention for his goal of reducing Maryland's energy consumption 15 percent by 2015, but his Public Service Commission, which regulates the industry, has rejected nearly every power-saving program proposed by BGE, the state's largest utility. The commission, in an order last week, sent Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. back to the drawing board on all but one of the conservation and energy-efficiency programs submitted for approval. The commission said it would not saddle ratepayers with the total cost - $274 million - after determining that administrative expenses are too high and the payoff in terms of the number of people who would benefit is too uncertain.

Gov. Martin O'Malley admits he's not really sure how to best solve complex problems relating to looming energy shortfalls. But he said Saturday that state regulators are exploring how to direct utilities to find or produce new power generation sources. O'Malley said regulators are looking at ways to make companies address any "supply shortfalls that the market is not reasonably expected to deliver in time for us to keep the lights on in 2011 or 2012 and the years that follow."

A Maryland company and another in New Jersey hope to build wind farms at opposite ends of Maryland.

Frostburg resident John Bambacus wrote Delegate Wendell Beitzel in February, asking him to sponsor the repeal of a law passed in 2007 that exempts industrial wind farms from public scrutiny. He asked again this week in light of Gov. Martin O'Malley's apparent willingness to consider being a part of an industrial wind energy facility off the shores of Ocean City. This time, the former state senator received the answer he wanted. ...Right now, "land-based wind turbines are on a fast-track (approval process). They get no environmental, health or safety review" from the Maryland Public Service Commission, the Department of the Environment or other agencies, much less the general public.

The Maryland Public Service Commission will make the official decision on the Criterion Power Partners, LLC wind project on Backbone Mountain next week, but already PSC staff is recommending the company's request. "Staff recommends that the Commission grant Criterion's application," the recommendation reads. "... and advise Criterion that an exemption from the (Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity) requirement does not limit the authority of any state or local authority ..." The document, available through the PSC Web site, states that Criterion, a subsidiary of Clipper Windpower Inc. of Carpinteria, Calif., will have to go through the necessary permitting processes, and that it should also include the approval of a stormwater/sediment erosion permit by Garrett County agencies, as the county had requested be done prior to the acceptance of the application.