US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wet Virginia field office, issued these comments regarding the Pinnacle wind power project proposed for ridgelines in Mineral County, WV. The comments pertain to the Habitat Characterization and Assessment of Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Species for the Pinnacle Wind Farm (BHE Environmental 2009a); the Avian Risk Assessment for the Pinnacle Wind Power Project (Kerlinger 2009); and the Bat Risk Assessment: Pinnacle Wind Farm (BHE Environmental 2009b). Excerpts of the letter are provided below. The full report can be accessed by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

This impacting order by New York's Public Service Commission requires renewable energy developers to quantify and qualify whether their proposed project, if built, will displace other renewable energy and in what amounts. (Case Number 09-E-0497)

This Windaction.org presentation was given at the Indiana State Bar Association's 2009 Fall Utility Law seminar held in Michigan City, Indiana on Oct 16-17, 2009.

The Animal Welfare Institute, Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy, and others submitted this pretrial brief and supporting reply briefs in their law suit opposing the Beech Ridge wind energy facility to be located in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. These briefs show that the developer, Beech Ridge Energy LLC, discovered the presence of the federally endangered Indiana Bat at the project site but withheld this information from federal and state authorities. With this information hidden from public inspection, the project was granted a siting certificate from the West Virginia Public Service Commission to construct up to 124 wind turbines, each 390 feet tall, along a twenty-three mile stretch of land on forested Allegheny Mountain ridgelines. Construction commence in early 2009 but a subsequent injunction request was filed by the plaintiffs and granted pending the outcome of this law suit. The pre-trial brief and reply briefs by renown bat experts Drs. Lynn Robbins, Michael Gannon and Thomas Kunz can be accessed by clicking on the links below. The introduction to the reply brief is also posted below. The trial is scheduled from October 21 before the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.

This appeal was filed by the Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury ("CCSR") in response to the August 20, 2009 final order issued by Maine's Department of Environmental Protection granting approval for Record Hill Wind LLC to construct a 22-turbine wind energy facility in Roxbury, Maine. The aggrieved parties further request a public hearing on its appeal on the grounds that credible, conflicting medical and technical information regarding the licensing criterion and it is likely that a public hearing will assist the State in understanding the evidence.

A technical critique of Denmark's wind energy development and operation. A brief summary of the report appears below. The full report can be downloaded by clicking on the link at the bottom of this page.

In a book released today, Dr. John Etherington - former Reader in Ecology, Thomas Huxley Medallist at the Royal College of Science and former co-editor of the Journal of Ecology - argues that wind farm technology is a wholly counter-productive and undesirable response to the problems of climate change and electricity generation.

The Animal Welfare Institute, Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy and David G. Cowan have filed a law suit against Beech Ridge Energy LLC and Invenergy Wind LLC under the federal Endangered Species Act ("ESA"). This filing seeks preliminary injunction to halt further construction, turbine erection, and operation of the Beech Ridge industrial wind power project. The plaintiffs argue that the project, if constructed, will result in the "likely killing, injury, and other forms of "take" of endangered Indiana bats in violation of the ESA." The wind project is proposed to be located on ridgelines in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.

It's commonly believed that new wind power generation will displace coal and natural gas-fueled power plants and thereby avoid all their associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (NOX) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The benefits of these avoided emissions have become a major factor in wind developers gaining public support for their plans to site wind farms. These purported benefits also are the reason for the large subsidies governments have provided to offset wind's higher power production costs. Unfortunately, some of these environmental claims are built upon incorrect assumptions about how U.S. environmental regulations actually work and the type of generation a new wind project will displace. On any given power project, the benefits of avoided air emissions can be calculated as the simple difference between whether a designated project is built versus if the project is not built. This simple calculation has been incorrectly done by several renewable project developers and their consultants. Their mistakes have led them to incorrectly claim large air emission benefits from building new wind facilities.

Eric R. Glitzenstein of the public interest law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal in Washington DC filed this letter with the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar on behalf of a number of conservation and citizen groups concerned with the impact of poorly sited and constructed wind power projects on bat and bird populations and other wildlife resources.