Picture 400 super-size windmills spinning in a steady, stiff ocean breeze just beyond the horizon off the Washington coast, generating enough electricity to supply the needs of Seattle and Tacoma. Now picture thousands of similar windmills off California, New England, the mid-Atlantic, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Even as Congress is embroiled in a sharp debate over whether to allow increased offshore oil and gas drilling, others are seriously working to develop a green source of energy along the outer continental shelf.

With Washington's biggest utility about to be bought by foreigners, public power advocates in four counties are hoping to switch their portions of the grid to local control. Voters will decide in November.

Cost issues aside, Avista has no choice but to add new renewable sources of electricity to its portfolio. Initiative 937, approved by Washington voters in 2006, requires utilities to acquire new renewable energy resources or to buy so-called renewable energy "credits" from others so that they supply at least 15 percent of their retail load with renewable energy in 2020. I-937 requires utilities to meet biennial conservation targets beginning in 2012, and because wind-turbine farms take only about six months to build after construction begins, Avista doesn't have to erect its wind turbines right away, Silkworth says. "Our needs don't really start until 2012; so, we're not thinking of building this thing for a few years," he says.

Kittitas County on Wednesday charged a state council that makes decisions on county wind farms with being biased against the county's position and against public testimony from those in opposition to a local project and also alleged the council's chairman violated appearance of fairness rules. Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) and governor-appointee, Jim Luce, prejudged the 65-turbine Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project before final decisions were made, was biased against the county's stance against the project and expressed disdain for public comment on the project. "Those disclosures ... are startling and undermine basic tenants of how we all believe government should operate," Zempel said in the release.

A state council halted Energy Northwest's application to build a $1.5 billion petcoke/ coal gasification plant at the Port Kalama Tuesday, saying the public power giant's plan failed to meet new state requirements for sequestering greenhouse gases. ...The proposed plant would use a new, cleaner technology called Integrated Gasfication Combined Cycle to produce power. Energy Northwest's plans call for gasifying petcoke, a waste product from manufacturing gasoline, though coal could also be gasified. Company officials have argued that state environmental rules prevent them from injecting carbon gases into the ground, and they've made a "good faith" to develop a sequestration plan.

Looking east into Gilliam County and north into Washington, turbines are strung over ridgelines as far as the eye can see. And there are nowhere near enough of them. ...West Coast utilities and independent power producers are locked in a land rush to secure the best wind sites and the power they produce. Coupled with a worldwide shortage of turbines and a falling dollar, the resulting scarcity is driving up the cost of wind power, a burden electricity ratepayers will shoulder.

Chicago-based Invenergy Wind North America applied on Wednesday with Kittitas County to construct a $250 million, 69-turbine wind farm sandwiched between Vantage Highway and Interstate 90 southeast of the existing Wild Horse Wind Power Project on the east end of the county. ...By utilizing the county's pre-identified wind farm zone, the company will likely expedite the approval process. "I'm estimating that public hearings before the county commissioners on the project could come as early as December," Piercy said.

The Desert Claim wind farm, planned by French-owned EnXco Inc. for eight miles north of Ellensburg, has been moving slowly since the company filed in November 2006 with the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, or EFSEC, for approval of a scaled-back version of a project that was first sought directly from Kittitas County in 2003. Kittitas County commissioners in April 2005 rejected the older, 120-turbine Desert Claim version saying it wasn't compatible with the surrounding land-use in the project area. That decision was later upheld by a county Superior Court decision.

Gov. Christine Gregoire today announced she will overrule local objections and allow a controversial plan to install 65 towering wind turbines in hills northwest of Ellensburg. ...It's the first time a local decision on a power plant has been overturned under a state law first created to site controversial nuclear-power plants.

Gov. Chris Gregoire announced this morning that she has approved the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project. "It's clear that Washington is growing and with that growth our demands for energy resources also grow," Gregoire wrote in a letter to Jim Luce, chairman of the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. "It is clear and compelling policy of the state to prefer new resources that have the least impact on the state's natural environment."

Congressman Doc Hastings told Gov. Chris Gregoire on Friday he's concerned that a final approval by her of a controversial wind farm in Kittitas County will set a negative precedent that says county government's wind power project review process is of no value. Hastings, a Republican from Pasco who represents Kittitas County as part of the 4th Congressional District, sent a letter Friday to Gregoire addressing his concerns centered on the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project, a 65-turbine wind farm planned for 12 miles northwest of Ellensburg and sought by Houston-based Horizon Wind Energy. Hastings urged Gregoire, a Democrat, to consider "the potential implications of setting aside the lawful policies of locally elected officials - not only for future wind farm development, but also for power project siting in Washington generally," according to a news release and a statement from Hastings.

There's a big obstacle to creating a shiny techno-green future by adding wind, sun and wave energy to our power system: the grid. The nation's electric power transmission system, aka the grid, could be imagined as an overworked tangle of fraying household wires repeatedly spliced together by your grandfather, who refuses to call the electrician. It is based on century-old technology and, from a modern management perspective, is dumb. Often, it's likened to the nation's highway system. But one local utilities executive said that is wishful thinking. "More like a collection of New England country lanes," said Roger Garratt, resource acquisition manager for Puget Sound Energy.

You already drink shade-grown coffee, drive a Prius, and shop strictly organic at PCC. So naturally you're the best kind of customer-indeed a captive customer-for the ad blitz Seattle City Light has recently devised for its two-year-old "Green Up" program. Your latest billing envelopes have encouraged you to Green Up by adding a voluntary premium of as much as $12 to your monthly bill. For what purpose? To buy an amount of wind power equal to a percentage of your household's usage of cheap hydropower. "Participating in the Green Up program demonstrates your preference and support for clean energy and a healthy environment in the Northwest," says the city's Web site. "It helps promote economic development in rural parts of the region, improves our energy security, and reduces pollution." Really?

Increasing commodity costs, the weakening U.S. dollar and government mandates spurring demand all have driven up construction costs of wind farms, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council was told Tuesday. Costs for other kinds of power plants also increased, said Jeff King, a senior resource analyst for the council. In addition, representatives from two Northwest utilities and the Bonneville Power Administration reported that Northwest dams don't have enough flexibility remaining to supplement and smooth the intermittent power supplies generated by new wind farms.

Growth in renewable energy threatens to cripple the northwest's power grid. Industry analysts say growth in wind power is stressing the system. The constant on and off of wind power stresses the system.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) peddled a Democratic energy bill in her party's radio address Saturday despite the bill stalling over a dispute on renewable energy this week.

A tax break that has helped spur the development of windmill farms in Washington state could be extended for five years as part of the new Senate energy bill, Sen. Maria Cantwell said Wednesday. But the ability to carry that power from turbines in some of the wind-swept regions of the Northwest to the customers who need it isn't part of the proposal at this time.

As the U.S. Supreme Court took decisive action Monday on the matter of planet-warming emissions, a proposed law in Washington to reduce carbon dioxide pollution continued to creep along, scarred and slightly mangled from multiple revisions. In its original form, the bill would have set state goals for cutting greenhouse gases, created limits for how much carbon dioxide new power plants could release, created a state climate office and required other actions to reduce pollution that's contributing to climate change. Since then, the legislation has morphed into a Franken-bill with new rules tacked onto it and major rewrites. It was then patched together into something approximating its original form and on Monday, it was tacked onto another piece of legislation to help ensure its survival. "Trying to figure out how to stop global warming is complex," said Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish. "We know it's a problem. How do we deal with it? There are various schools of thought."

Wind energy will play a growing role in meeting the rising power needs of the Northwest, but it isn't controllable and it needs total backup by traditional sources such as hydroelectric dams, according to a report released Wednesday by energy specialists. The six-month study looked at how to integrate wind power into the region's power system. While wind energy sounds attractive, it can be fickle, the specialists said. Sometimes it blows, sometimes it doesn't. And while wind is free, they said getting its energy from a rural wind farm to an urban wall socket isn't.