"Everything he is outlining in this plan will pad his already ample bank account," said Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who likened the plan to corporate welfare, since it calls for $1 trillion in government investment and an extension of tax credits for wind companies that are set to expire at the end of 2008. ...Ed Legge, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based trade association for electric-utility companies, including Duke and Exelon, said he expects consumers to eventually get a reality check on wind's shortcomings. "You can't depend on wind," Mr. Legge said. "Our customers are trained to expect the power is available and on. An intermittent source is automatically problematic, and that's what wind is right now. Wind stops blowing."

Herman J Schellstede, owner of an oil industry equipment company in New Iberia, is betting the Gulf of Mexico can produce enough wind to power thousands of homes and businesses. He's preparing to establish 62 huge wind turbines in the gulf off the coast of Galveston, Texas, that would produce 150 megawatts of power for electric generation. Some of the turbines will be mounted on abandoned platforms like the oil rigs Schellstede constructed in the gulf for 42 years.

A federal clock is ticking on an ambitious Texas Public Utility Commission plan to build transmission lines to funnel wind energy from West Texas to metropolitan areas. The wind energy industry revolves around a production tax credit that expires Dec. 31. After more than one false start, there is no guarantee Congress will extend it. Expansion will halt, some warn, if lawmakers don't take action this summer. "We don't want lines to just be standing out there," Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham said of the planned transmission lines. Wortham is also director of the West Texas Energy Consortium. Until a turbine is producing juice -- no credit.

The transmission problem is so acute in Texas that turbines are sometimes shut off even when the wind is blowing. "When the amount of generation exceeds the export capacity, you have to start turning off wind generators" to keep things in balance, said Hunter Armistead, head of the renewable energy division in North America at Babcock & Brown, a large wind developer and transmission provider. "We've reached that point in West Texas." ...The exact route of the transmission lines has yet to be determined because the state has not yet acquired right-of-way, according to Mr. Withrow of the utility commission. The project will almost certainly face concerns from landowners reluctant to have wires cutting across their property.

Pecos County Commissioner for Precinct 3 Jay Kent speculated aloud about how much money the county was losing, but after a discussion the Commissioners Court approved unanimously Monday a tax abatement for the Sherbino II Wind Farm LLC, a development venture of British Petroleum Alternative Energy. The court approved the agreement with amendments. One removes a clause that requires an invoice be sent to BP each year, placing the onus for payment by Jan. 31 of each year of the abatement upon BP; the second specifies a public notice to other taxing entities.

Texas officials gave preliminary approval Thursday to the nation's largest wind-power project, a plan to build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to bring wind energy from gusty West Texas to urban areas. ..."We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined," said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. "I think that's a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven't gone far enough, some think we've pushed too far."

A divided Public Utility Commission gave preliminary approval today to construct $5 billion in transmission lines to bring wind power from West Texas to urban areas. The project is expected to cost average household consumers about $4 a month. It should boost the state's wind farm business, already the largest in the nation, to even greater levels. It would increase capacity for wind generation to 18,456 megawatts. The plan, which is expected to be finalized later this month, is a middle ground between five scenarios ranging from $3 billion to $6.4 billion.

Eight legislators from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex sent a letter to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) Monday urging the Commission to opt for aggressive expansion of electricity transmission capacity from West Texas to reign in soaring electric bills and prevent further pollution of local air. ...The letter calls on the PUC to adopt Scenario 3 when it meets Thursday to continue its discussions regarding which scenario will offer the greatest benefits to Texans for moving electricity from the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) in West Texas and the Panhandle.

TexDOT says the Ralph Fair Road bridge over Interstate 10 is hopelessly damaged and will have to be demolished and replaced, a job which is expected to take several months. The bridge has been closed since late June after a truck hauling a propeller wing for a wind power turbine in west Texas slammed into one of the bridge abutments. Engineers say it will be impossible to repair the bridge.

"You're building, typically the projects way out in the middle of nowhere, long distances from the load centers," said Lisa Linowes of WindAction.org.

Indeed, the flat Midwest is where the country's wind blows the most - the so-called "wind alley."

But cities along the coast are where the majority of people live. So getting that power to the people would mean a massive, multi-billion-dollar grid restructuring.

Plus, winds die down in the summer, when demand is the highest. Some turbines have been known to kill migratory birds. And, not everyone welcomes such a sight in their backyard.

Today, Pickens will take the wraps off what he's calling the Pickens Plan for cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade. To promote it, he is bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever. The website, www.pickensplan.com, goes live today. ...Of course, Pickens also has a particular solution in mind. Wind. And natural gas.

There is such a thing as too much wind power. Sure, wind is among the cheapest, cleanest fuels generating the power Texans increasingly demand. But as officials brag about the state's status as the No. 1 wind producer in the country, they're also debating how much is too much. Building the transmission lines to bring wind power from rural West Texas to population zones will cost billions. And even with enough transmission lines, the on-again, off-again nature of wind can leave coal and natural gas-fired power plants scrambling to fill in the gaps. For electricity companies, predicting wind patterns is a new art. ...The arguments against supporting too much wind are swaying PUC Chairman Barry Smitherman. Last month, he said he'd been leaning toward the scenario to build the largest amount of transmission, but after hearing arguments from various parties, he favors a more modest scenario.

Sweetwater may not be the wind-energy capital for long. Pickens is in the process of building what could be the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. "We're going to build a 4,000-megawatt farm in Pampa, and we've already bought the turbines for the first 1,000 megawatts, and we'll start construction in the summer of 2010," Pickens said. "We've put together all the land for it. The landowners are ready; we're ready." Pickens landed at Avenger Field at 2:21 p.m. with a crowd of about 50 gathered to see the man with an estimated net worth of $3 billion.

A spokesman for FPL Energy says a recent report by a local TV station saying all the turbine blades at Horse Hollow Wind Farm are being replaced is inaccurate. "We are not replacing turbine blades at Horse Hollow," said Steven Stengel. "Let me emphasize 'not.'" Instead, a "routine" repair will be made on the lightning receptors on 95 of the 421 turbines on the farm southwest of Abilene, Stengel said.

A 155-turbine wind farm in Livingston County likely will be recommended when the Livingston County Zoning Board of Appeals reconvenes Monday. Iberdrola Renewables has proposed the Streator-Cayuga Ridge South Wind Farm, which would be spread across 15,000 acres in between Odell and Emington. Hearings that stretched over weeks ended Thursday with Iberdrola's closing arguments and a review of possible special conditions to be attached to the project recommendation.

Texas has moved closer to drawing the final map for transmission lines to carry wind energy to the state's largest cities. ...The next step is a final hearing and a decision by the Public Utilities Commission of Texas on where to put transmission lines to connect West Texas wind farms with consumers in the rest of the state. ...Shell expressed disappointment with what it perceived as the PUC's timid attitude displayed at an earlier hearing. The PUC could no doubt hear the sound of wind, but it was "air being sucked from the room as the ERCOT and PUC staff witness panel left many gathered for the proceedings feeling deflated," according to Shell's brief.

Wind is always available and it doesn't pollute the planet. But as wonderful as it sounds, using the resource for energy could come with a hefty price tag. ...But there's a big problem. The Texas Public Utility Commission [PUC] hasn't approved a way to funnel all the power from the wind farms in West Texas and eventually the panhandle, into the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Ross points out, "The only impediment we have right now is the construction of transmission lines. We've got to construct the wires to move the power back to Dallas/Fort Worth." According to the PUC, that could cost at least $1 million per mile to get the power into the local area.

The Highland Independent School District learned earlier this month that it is a property wealthy district after being notified of its status by the Texas Education Agency. In TEA terms, Highland is a Chapter 41 district for the 2008-09 school year. Chapter 41 of the Texas Education Code makes provisions for certain school districts to share their local tax revenue with other school districts. ... The Highland ISD has been declared a Chapter 41 district because of significant increases in property values due to the new wind farms in the district. Nelson said those wind farm values will peak in the 2008-09 school year and then decline due to tax code Chapter 313 property tax limitation agreements ...

A regional conservation group is pointing out where birds and wind farms might not mix. A Playa Lakes Joint Venture mapping project shows the few remaining acres of habitat for the lesser prairie chicken and where playa lakes can draw large numbers of migrating birds. "There has been a lot of interest from the wind industry, local and state conservation groups and state agencies," said Megan McLachlan, a geographic-information system analyst for the group. "We've gotten a lot of phone calls the last couple of months asking us to share the data. There's a lot of people working on the issue."

A river. A park. A projected destination near downtown Dallas. The Trinity River project is expected to be a beauty. But winding along it could be something tall, environmentally green and what some consider intrusive. Discussion has started at city hall about lining a two-mile section of the Trinity toll road with wind turbines - 80 of them, all 80 feet tall. The Dallas City Council, as of this week, is studying whether to add wind turbines.