A public hearing on what would be the first merchant transmission line between Canada and the United States drew 100 residents to Great Falls on Tuesday, with economic development officials and elected officials singing its praises and farmers raising concerns. ...For the state to approve the project, the DEQ's Tom Ring said it must find that the line has a minimal impact on the environment and is consistent with regional plans for expansion of the electric grid, while serving the public's interest. The state has only denied one transmission project in the past. Como said MATL would be the first merchant line between Canada and the United States. There is one small line connecting Mexico and the U.S. Traditionally, transmission was constructed by regulated utilities, such as the old Montana Power Co. In the case of a merchant line, a company builds the transmission, and separate power generator entities pay to use it.

Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar kicked off his re-election campaign Tuesday in typically feisty fashion, saying he will be battling well-funded opponents who want to "silence" his voice against special interests. Molnar, a Laurel Republican representing the PSC's southeastern Montana district, said he has spent four years fighting - and sometimes losing - battles on behalf of consumers, voting against actions he says have raised electric and gas rates. ...When asked which "high-ranking politicians" he has exposed as raising utility rates and taxes, Molnar pointed to the federal tax credit for wind power producers. The credit could go to wind power developers in northern Montana that plan to sell power to Canada, thereby using federal tax credits to subsidize power consumed by Canadians, he said.

Small wind power producers in Montana said Thursday that NorthWestern Energy wants to overcharge them for adding their power to the system that serves NorthWestern electricity customers. Small power project developers said that if the state Public Service Commission doesn't force NorthWestern to come up with a more realistic charge, wind power producers likely will take their business to other states. "I'm not going to be around, because the free market is going to tell me to go to Idaho," said Russ Doty of Billings, chief executive officer of New World WindPower. Doty spoke at a PSC hearing Thursday in Helena, where Two Dot Wind of Billings is asking the commission to reject NorthWestern's proposed cost of "integrating" power from Two Dot's wind turbines near Martinsdale and Livingston.

The Cut Bank Development Corporation, Cut Bank Area Chamber of Commerce, Shelby Chamber of Commerce and Pondera County Port Authority have one goal in mind this week. They are all working to recruit enough concerned community members to travel to Great Falls to show their support for the Montana Alberta Tie transmission line. Together they are organizing buses that will leave from their communities on Tuesday afternoon, March 11, and arrive in Great Falls for the public hearing at 6 p.m. Public hearings on the proposed line are also scheduled in Cut Bank and Conrad on March 12 and March 13.

A wind farm proposed in Valley County in northeastern Montana keeps getting smaller, but the developer insists the project isn't dead. Stephen Wiley of Texas-based GreenHunter Wind Energy LLC, said the company now hopes to construct a 10-megawatt wind farm entirely on private land. The initial proposal was for a 500-megawatt facility covering 20,000 acres of publicly and privately owned property. Conservation interests raised concerns because the project was located so close the Bitter Creek Wilderness study area, which is known for its views and wildlife. GreenHunter scaled its plans back to 170 megawatts and then to 50. This week, Wiley said the opposition made the larger plans too risky, prompting the third reduction in size to 10 megawatts.

Montana's fledgling wind energy industry is keeping its fingers crossed that the House will approve legislation next week that would extend a tax break that has helped the industry compete financially with energy generated from fossil fuels. ...In the Senate, Republicans were able to block the legislation by one vote. President Bush threatened to veto it because it would have been paid for by canceling tax breaks that now go to oil and gas companies. Rehberg and the Republicans say the funding plan is a tax increase that would get passed on to consumers. Democrats say it better reflects the nation's shifting energy priorities and that the companies can well afford it. Exxon Mobil had a $41 billion profit last year, the largest ever posted by a U.S. company.

Last week, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced they will conduct public hearings on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed MATL transmission line in Great Falls on March 11, Cut Bank on March 12 and Conrad on March 13. Jones is hoping to pack the public hearings with people who are supportive of the transmission line and wind energy industry, which he believes, has the potential to infuse millions, if not billions, of dollars into the sagging Hi-Line economy. The DEQ and DOE are currently taking written comments on the document, which was released to the public Feb. 11, and will continue to do so until March 31.

The impact of a proposed Great Falls-to-Alberta power transmission line on farmers and the environment are spelled out in a new study of the project, which state and federal regulators released Monday. Montanans, concerned about both, had asked for more information. "The cumulative impact analysis has been upgraded," said Tom Ring of the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Major developments in the regulatory review of what would be the first merchant transmission line between Lethbridge, Alberta, and Great Falls are occurring north and south of the border. The Montana Alberta Tie Line, which is expected to spawn wind farms in northcentral Montana, would be owned by Tonbridge Corp., a Toronto-based energy firm. State officials announced Friday that an environmental study of the project would be released for public review sometime next week.

The Montana Alberta Tie-Line has been given conditional approval for the 230-kilovolt power line that will import and export electricity between Lethbridge, Alta., and Great Falls, Mont. The Alberta Energy and Utility Board said in a news release late Thursday afternoon that the Montana company must hold discussions with affected landowners along the approved route "to address the mitigation of specific impacts" on them. The board also ordered that Montana-Alberta Tie-Line must report back to them about this process by April 30. The board says it will not issue a permit for the project "until it is satisfied that MATL has satisfied this requirement." The $129 million project was approved by the National Energy Board last April and the Alberta board was the last step.

A Texas company with Portuguese backing is working with state natural resource officials in central Montana to develop a 300-megawatt wind farm - twice the size of the state's largest existing wind project. Horizon Wind Energy would erect up to 100 turbines near Martinsdale, about 80 miles east of Helena, to tap into winds sweeping through the Musselshell River valley. Horizon had been solicited to develop in the area by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. The agency owns about 2,400 acres of school trust land within the 19,000 acre project site. ...Gene Leary, 67, owns a ranch within a few miles of the proposed wind farm site. He described wind farms as "visual pollution" and said he worries such projects could mar central Montana's scenic vistas, driving down property values and discouraging tourism.

The project, known as the Montana Alberta Tie Line, has secured financing and Canadian regulatory approval, said Johan van't Hof. But the chief executive of the project's parent company said federal and state approval in Montana has been delayed. ...The Montana Alberta Tie Line wants to receive its permits so that wind farms can be built in time to get federal tax credits that expire at the end of the year, van't Hof said. ...Environmentalists have been critical, worrying it could be used to transport electricity from greenhouse gas-producing coal plants.

One of those developers, Madison Valley Renewable Energy LLC, was recently chosen by Montana to use state school trust lands in Madison County for a wind power project, in exchange for a percentage of its gross revenues, said Mike Sullivan, a property management section supervisor with the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. School trust lands, of which there are about 5 million acres in surface lands and more than 6 million in subsurface acres in Montana, are leased in a variety of ways to raise money for public schools. Sullivan oversees commercial leases of the trust lands, which is the smallest yet highest revenue-generating section, he said Wednesday. Other sections provide leases to farmers, ranchers, mineral prospectors and timber harvesters. The agreement with the state provides the energy company with 4,000 acres in exchange for 3.1 percent of the wind farm's electrical generation revenues, Sullivan said.

"Utilities in Montana are not incentivized for risk. They strive for boring meetings," she quipped, but added that one of the biggest problems with wind energy is that one requires a "firming" source such as hydroelectric or natural gas generators to offset the variability of the wind generation. NorthWestern buys reserve energy from Washington and Oregon to firm the energy it receives from the Judith Gap wind farm. "It's getting harder to get firming energy. It's a very real problem," she said, meaning that it will cost more in the future. ... She said NorthWestern is going forward with a 500 kv direct-current line, the Northern Lights project, that would be a "superhighway" to Nevada, although the regulatory process involved is time-consuming. She said northcentral residents have a huge interest in the MATL line but she added that NorthWestern Energy, to which MATL would connect, requires that the wind energy must be firm before it interconnects. "It will be a wind race," she said, for a developer to complete all the requirements.

A wind farm southeast of here started generating power Saturday and could be fully operational by the end of the month. ...Providers of wind power must have a backup source, called "firming power," which MDU has from other sources, to keep transmission lines loaded and energy delivery consistent. "Wind is a good supplemental, but it just can't be your base load because the wind doesn't always blow," Hanson said. MDU has researched and tried to get into the wind power business for about 25 years, Hanson said. Those projects, which were to be built and owned by other companies, didn't come to fruition.

A top executive with the owner of the state's largest wind farm - in the area to meet with landowners about leasing land - said Tuesday that the company is planning to build four to six additional wind farms in Montana. Three of the preferred sites are located between Great Falls and the Canadian border. ...Johan van't Hoff, the president of Tonbridge Power Inc., and Bob Williams of Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. also spoke at the meeting. Tonbridge owns Montana Alberta Tie, which is developing a 210-mile, $150 million transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alberta. Invenergy is one of three wind developers that purchased capacity on the proposed line with the intention of constructing wind farms.

An agreement that could make Valley County the site of one of the most advanced wind farms in the United States is awaiting approval by the Chinese government, according to The Glasgow Courier. GreenHunter Energy Inc., a Grapevine, Texas-based developer, announced the pending acquisition of interest in People's Republic of China-based MingYang Wind Power, which will soon be one of the largest manufacturers of wind turbines in China, according to the report.

Representatives from Carbon and Albany counties have settled on how to distribute about $600,000 in impact assistance funding expected from a planned wind farm near Medicine Bow. Most of the money would go to Carbon County, Medicine Bow and Hanna.

In a nutshell, if you have taxable income, it is reduced by $19 for every megawatt of wind electricity for every hour it is produced. For the top five wind farm owners listed above that comes to about $10 billion. Those $10 billion are not shifted to the deficit. They are shifted to regular taxpayers. Yup, even though none of the top five produce any electricity consumed in Montana, you still get to pay for it with your tax dollars. And what did you get for your tax dollars? Not much. By and large, nothing got built. Existing generation was bought, and the tax incentives were activated, making you a conscripted investor in their acquisition schemes and dreams. Guess that's another loophole Congressman Rehberg can work on with Sens. Tester and Baucus. Of course, that $10 billion is gone with the wind.

Currently, Glacier Electric is working with four developers who have requested interconnection or capacity on our transmission system. We are working closely with Northwestern Energy on these projects. Northwestern Energy is the Control Area Operator and is responsible for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission process that outlines the handling of all transmission interconnection requests. ...Navitas Energy (MN), Invenergy (IL), Naturener USA (CA) and SnowBreeze Wind Development (FL) all hold respective queue positions for transmission capacity on Glacier Electric's transmission system.