A proposed wind farm in and around Ira has cleared its first bureaucratic hurdle. The Public Service Board issued certificates of public good Friday allowing Vermont Community Wind Farm to place meteorological testing towers on Herrick Mountain in Ira and Susie's Peak in Clarendon.

Arguments over wind power can take on a “does not”/“does too” quality to the technically unschooled. Even the basic question of what the technology can do for the environment seems to get mired in contradictory claims. Can wind power displace fossil fuel consumption, thus reducing the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere? “Of course, that’s the point,” say the developers. “No it can’t, because …” reply anti-wind activists, before launching into explanations that sound arcane to those unfamiliar with the workings of the power grid. Whom to believe?

Green Mountain Power is continuing to investigate the possibility of a seventeen-turbine wind farm outside of Lowell Mountain, in Orleans County, Vermont. ... Dave Hallquist, CEO of VEC, ...acknowledged the "aesthetic issues" at play in the decision to build a wind farm. Hallquist said that since the billboard ban in 1968, he felt that Vermont had worked hard to preserve an open, rural image, and that he understood the need to maintain that image.

Vermont's energy future could become clearer in the coming months, with key decisions possible by year's end on the relicensing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and on the renewal of utilities' contracts with Hydro Quebec. Together, Yankee and HQ provide about two-thirds of the electricity currently consumed by Vermont residents and businesses.

Green Mountain Power is moving forward with plans to develop a wind farm in Lowell. The company is asking the Vermont Public Service Board for permission to measure wind in the Lowell Mountain range.

Who doesn't have a soft spot for a brimming, backwater lake or the misty cascades below a spillway? Who isn't transported back to the quaint, mill-spun days of early European settlement - and forward, to a low-carbon energy future? Short answer: It's complicated. Vermont's 78 hydropower dams are popular with many ecologists - and condemned by many others. The pros and cons have supplied a bracing charge of alternating current to Vermont's green movement. "It's hard to see people who are normally bedfellows in the environmental movement banging heads," said Jack Price, a habitat specialist.

New York's far-reaching investigation into allegations that wind developers paid local officials to approve their energy projects moved into the state of Vermont this week. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday that his office issued a subpoena to Reunion Power, a wind energy developer with offices in Manchester Center and Hackensack, N.J., as part of its ongoing investigation.

The Select Board voted unanimously Monday to sign a 30-year lease with Vermont Community Wind Farm to put turbines on municipal forest land West Rutland owns in Ira. The company is seeking to build an 80-megawatt wind farm in and around Ira. In return, the company will pay the town a total of $3,000 for the three-year "development phase."

One hundred people crammed into Ira town hall Tuesday night to meet with the developers of the Vermont Community Wind Farm. Some in the crowd already had their mind made up, and would not support the project no matter what. A majority of residents are relatively supportive of the concept of wind power, but have issues with the location and magnitude of the proposed project.

The president and spokesman of Vermont Community Wind Farm stood before a crowd of about 80 people for more than two hours in Ira's Town Hall. ...Much of the feedback amounted to "go away." People in the audience held up signs opposing the project. David Potter, who represents part of Ira in the Legislature, even objected to the company's name.

Wildlife biologists from a Maine environmental firm will share two year's worth of research on Vermont's bat populace to help shed light on "white-nose syndrome," the disease that has killed at least 400,000 bats in the Northeast. Stantec of Topsham, Maine, has installed five of its acoustic bat detectors on Grandpa's Knob in Castleton. The devices detect and log bats that pass by each unit, according to company spokeswoman Alison Smith.

Dozens of environmental and renewable energy contractors flocked to a day-long session at the Statehouse Friday with the Vermont Public Service Board to hear about a new state law aimed at stimulating the development of green energy. The renewable program, which became law without Gov. James Douglas' signature, clears away some regulatory hurdles for the creation of small green energy-generating sources in Vermont.

Another delay has stopped the progress of the Sheffield windmill project. The retirement of the Commissioner of Transportation, Bonnie Rutledge, has put a hold on Barton Village's issuance of the permit First Wind needs to use Duck Pond Road to transport the wind turbines to the Sheffield site. This delay is bad news for First Wind but good news to the project's opponents.

Every day, all day, weather radar shows a small but intense thunderstorm northwest of Plattsburgh, N.Y. Further to the west, in central New York, where much of Vermont's weather comes from ...But these daily storms are not real. They're an unintended side effect of the wind farms cropping up on windy plateaus and mountains all over the nation.

Public Service Department spokesman Stephen Wark said he could not think of an occasion when a town plan prevented a utility project. ...Many residents of Ira expressed interest at two recent meetings in amending the town plan to keep out a proposed 80-megawatt wind farm. Members of the Planning Commission have cautioned that they are not sure such a move will work.

The town's Select Board plans to file documents with the state Public Service Board opposing a wind farm proposal to be located in Clarendon, Ira and neighboring towns. Board members voted Monday to oppose Vermont Community Wind Farm's plan to develop an 80-megawatt wind facility and to erect a 197-foot temporary wind measurement tower on Susie's Peak in Clarendon.

A proposed wind farm dominated discussion of updating the town plan Tuesday, with many residents asking if the town can put a stop to the development. Neither the Select Board nor the Planning Commission took any formal action Tuesday night, but commission member Tim Martin called the comments "very useful" and said the commission would work on revisions. He said the commission was not used to getting this amount of input.

Officials from Vermont Community Wind have organized a bus trip to a wind farm in New Hampshire to try and build support for a large scale wind farm they're proposing in and around the Rutland County town of Ira. Company officials say about 35 residents from the area will travel to Lempster, New Hampshire, on Saturday where a 24-megawatt wind farm has recently been built.

An impending development proposal has stirred up strong interest in the rewrite of the town plan. Planning Commissioner Tim Martin said the town undertook the five-year rewrite of the plan before learning about the proposal to put most or all of an 80-megawatt wind farm in Ira.