Young County commissioners will likely seek a 60-40 split on tax proceeds if they approve an abatement request from British Petroleum for a windmill energy farm in northern Young County. While meeting with attorney Alan Carmichael on Monday, commissioners discussed a way to get the most money for the county without derailing the proposed wind farm. Under the proposal from BP, the county would abate 75 percent of the taxes the first two years and see the figures drop through the 10-year abatement. ..."I want it to be competitive, but keep in mind this is British Petroleum, one of the 25 largest companies in the world, and they don't need a heck of a lot of help from us," Carmichael said. "But we do want this project to be completed."

Folks in several nearby towns, about 100 miles southwest of Dallas, are fighting to make sure the same thing doesn't happen to them. ...They say the companies are swooping in -- even into areas that aren't as windy -- because federal tax credits for wind developers expire at year's end unless Congress extends the subsidy. Opponents also are holding meetings and erecting yard signs protesting turbines, disputing that wind energy works at all. ...They say that unreliability isn't worth sacrificing their scenic vistas and high property values.

Opinions from those in attendance were wide ranging. Many said although they did not support wind turbines coming to Erath County, they wondered if they were not necessary evils if the United States was to gain energy independence. Stokes said Texas is currently first in the nation for wind energy production. Texas will reach full capacity in about five years - even without a single wind turbine in Erath. Others also wondered what would happen to their property rights neighbors signed a lease and they did not. Could companies use eminent domain to take possession of the land and put up a wind turbine? Attorney J. Mac Rust said companies could not claim eminent domain under those conditions. However, a company could claim eminent domain to run a transmission wire across land.

About 140 people got another look at the coming world of wind power Friday. Birds and bats were major topics, but the basic message was that there needs to be more study of the impact of wind farms and turbines. "We're kind of finding our way along with the industry," Kathy Boydston, a biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, told the gathering at the Ambassador Hotel in Amarillo. Experts are trying to find ways to deter birds and bats from hitting turbines, but the lack of information on how many fall victim and how it happens is lacking.

An environmental group may try to push the federal government to file a lawsuit against the state, arguing that it failed to stop developers from building a wind farm in Kenedy County, an attorney said Friday. Jim Blackburn, a Houston attorney who represents the Coastal Habitat Alliance, said the group had not decided whether it will appeal a judge's decision to dismiss a lawsuit against Texas General Land Office Commissioner Jerry Patterson, wind developers PPM Energy and Babcock & Brown and the Public Utility Commission.

One native bird in the area may soon be added to the endangered species list. And it could have a big impact on future wind farm development in the Panhandle. There are only a few lesser prairie chickens left in Texas. And because of huge wind farms proposed in the Panhandle, their population is in limbo. Today at the Panhandle Wind and Wildlife Conference here in Amarillo, wildlife experts discussed the impact wind turbines and wind farms have on animals, both in the air and on the ground.

Babcock & Brown said that a federal court in Texas dismissed a lawsuit, clearing a path for the company to continue its plans for a wind farm on the Texas Gulf Coast. The Coastal Habitat Alliance filed suits related to the construction of two separate wind energy generation facilities, including the Babcock & Brown facility, in December 2007. The federal suit challenged the state's decision to allow the developments to be built without required environmental review and public comment and sought possible injunction against the Texas Land Commissioner, the commission and the developers of the two wind farms, PPM Energy and Babcock and Brown.

A federal judge in Austin dismissed a lawsuit that sought to prevent further construction of two Kenedy County wind farm projects. The suit was filed in December by the Coastal Habitat Alliance, a nine-member environmental group that includes King Ranch, claiming the projects would cause irrevocable damage to the environment and birds. The alliance also filed a suit in state court that was dismissed earlier this year. The wind farm projects, by Australian-based Babcock and Brown Ltd. and Oregon-based Iberdrola Renewables, formerly PPM Energy, continued with site preparation and initial construction and erection of wind turbines

As North Texans sweltered through another 100-degree-plus day, the windmills around Sweetwater turned lazily in the West Texas breeze, ...It's not much - barely 1 percent of the peak electricity demand Monday for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operator of the transmission grid for about 75 percent of the state. But it's about what is expected from the state's wind-power industry, by far the nation's largest, during the dog days of summer, when temperatures climb but wind speeds dip on the West Texas plains. "In general, wind's peak energy does not coincide with peak electricity demand. It's not a good match," said Andy Swift, director of the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

Nance Ranch has been home to everything from cattle to crops, but it could also be hosting wind turbines soon. The Texas A&M University System's board of regents in College Station voted Friday to allow West Texas A&M University to give wind developer Higher Power Energy an option to lease the ranch for a wind farm. Higher Power was one of two companies that responded to the school's request for proposals. WT's Alternative Energy Institute helped evaluate the responses to meet the school's expectations.

Jon Bennett, a public relations spokesman for TXU Energy praised the wind energy industry here this week where tall white wind turbines line the horizon. The problem, he said, is that there has to be a reliable mix of power. "One thing that's not very popular is to stand in front of a wind generating group and say wind is not the only solution," Bennett said. "There are other solutions out there that need to be developed." How else, he asked, can power be sustained when the wind falls off?

The Texas Public Utilities Commission took no action Thursday on a final order intended to say how much wind power can come from special zones, which were set up to speed the building of transmission lines. "The staff is still working on the final language for the order," said Terry Hadley, the commission's spokesman. "They expect that no later than the next meeting on Aug. 14." The preliminary order the staff is fleshing out calls for 18,000 megawatts of wind power

A lawsuit brought against the Taylor County Commissioners Court in April for granting what the plaintiff claims are illegal tax abatements to wind farms in the county was dropped Thursday with little fanfare. Tuscola resident Dale Rankin, an opponent of wind energy, filed the lawsuit in April alleging that wind energy equipment is not eligible for tax abatements under the state tax code. Rankin said he decided to "nonsuit," or essentially drop, the lawsuit because of what he called "procedural issues." However, he said he plans to refile the lawsuit.

Texas is requiring utilities to generate 5,880 megawatts of electric power from renewable sources by 2015 and 10,000 megawatts by 2025. No problem there. Wind power entrepreneurs have created a new energy boom in West Texas. There's already more wind electricity available than the limited transmission system in the region can handle. And hundreds of private companies have proposed new electric highways. They are waiting for the Public Utility Commission of Texas to determine who will get the cost-plus contracts and where the lines will be constructed.

The Peñascal Wind Farm in Kenedy County has its second customer, the South Texas Electric Cooperative, which will receive about a fourth of the power generated by the project. The cooperative recently signed a 15-year lease for 50 megawatts of energy from the wind farm, owned by Oregon-based Iberdrola Renewables, formerly PPM Energy. ...A key factor in the purchase of the power is that coastal winds blow on hot summer afternoons, peak electrical demand time in South Texas, said Michael Packard, general manager of the South Texas Electric Cooperative.

Following a July 17 selection by the Public Utility Commission of Texas, Gillespie County will be one of many counties in the state that will see new power lines in the next four to five years that will carry electricity from wind farms in West Texas and the Panhandle regions to the more metropolitan areas in Central and East Texas.

"It makes a terrible air raid noise," says Debbie Behrens, about the high-pitched whine made by the turbine. "It's driving me crazy." What's worse, is that Debbie and her son Lance both say that high-pitched hum is now causing them problems, physically. "You occasionally have the dizziness," explains Lance, "The ringing in the ears, I've never experienced the ringing in the ears." It turns out, there is a documented health condition associated with the noise generated by some windmills called: Wind turbine Syndrome. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, nausea and ringing in the ears -- known as tinnitus.

Wind farms are becoming an increasingly popular way to generate green energy, but little is known about the ecological and socioeconomic effects of the towering windmills that have begun to dot parts of the landscape. What impact do the tall structures have on the birds and bats in the area? How do the wind farms affect local economies and governmental policy? And what do residents living in communities that are home to the farms think? Two Texas A&M University researchers have been tapped to join a study that is trying to determine those answers.

Oncor Electric Delivery, the Dallas-based utility that provides the transmission lines that serve most of North Texas, said Thursday that it hopes to build more than 1,000 miles of the lines needed to carry wind power from West Texas to the rest of the state. Oncor is one of five big utilities that have formed a consortium that proposes to build all of the estimated 2,400 miles of transmission lines included in a $5 billion plan approved last week by the Public Utility Commission, which picked it among several options. The other partners in the consortium are Sharyland Utilities, LCRA Transmission Services Corp., American Electric Power and MidAmerican Energy Holdings.

Julie Caruthers Parsley said Wednesday she will leave the Public Utility Commission on Sept. 2. Her resignation follows that of Commissioner Paul Hudson, who announced last month that he will step down from the three-member panel on Aug. 15. The commission makes decisions on electric and telecommunications policy. A week ago, Parsley dissented from a decision by Hudson and Chairman Barry Smitherman to build $5 billion in new transmission lines to bring power from wind farms in West Texas and the Panhandle to populated areas in north, central and southeast parts of the state.