Four months ago, Longview Realtor Bill Hallanger bought an $8,000 windmill from an Arizona company and set out to put it up on the nearly 8 acres he owns on Nevada Drive. Hallanger figured the project would be a fun experiment. He'd learn about renewable energy and maybe shave a little money off his electric bill. But the project has taken on a more urgent purpose. Despite looming worries about energy prices and supply shortages, the technology isn't yet covered by the county's zoning laws, and that has stalled Hallanger's effort.

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.

Wind power's intermittency as an energy resource but minimal contributions toward peak-capacity needs are further evidenced in operational data from three Washington and Montana wind farms. Monthly and even daily energy production vary substantially. Officials from NorthWestern Energy and Puget Sound Energy recently shared these and other wind-power experiences, including reserve requirements (challenging) and wind forecasting (improving). These tales come from the 135 MW-capacity Judith Gap wind farm in central Montana, whose entire output NorthWestern buys from developer Invenergy Wind, and PSE's 150 MW-capacity Hopkins Ridge and 229 MW-capacity Wild Horse wind projects in southeastern and central Washington, respectively. ..."The relationship between load and wind output is almost zero," the former council member told the current council. "That's a real issue for us. We continue to learn almost every day some things about wind operations on our system."

The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council announced it will conduct a public hearing 7 p.m. Aug. 6 at Central Washington University to examine a request to expand the acreage of the Wild Horse Wind Power Project and add 26 wind turbines to the wind farm located 17 miles east of Ellensburg.

Kittitas County commissioners have selected attorneys with a Wenatchee firm to provide land-use hearings examiner services that will begin when a contract with the firm is signed. ...The hearings examiner will conduct public hearings on subdivisions or plats, rezones when they are connected to a subdivision project, cluster plats, development agreements, planned unit developments, resorts and wind farms when they are proposed within the east-county wind resource zone. These hearings are now conducted by the county Planning Commission. The examiner will then make a recommendation to county commissioners who make the final decision on the proposals. The Planning Commission will continue to make recommendations on changes to the county comprehensive plan and land-use codes and on proposals from the three citizen advisory committees and rezones not connected to a subdivision.

The state Supreme Court is weighing whether it has jurisdiction in Kittitas County's appeal of a wind farm 12 miles northwest of Ellensburg. The court held a hearing Thursday on whether it should weigh in on the case. Last September, Gov. Chris Gregoire approved the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project, as recommended by the state's Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council.

"In its simplest terms, it's about who should make the land-use decisions for Kittitas County residents," said James Carmody, lawyer for the citizen wind farm opposition group Residents Opposed to Kittitas Turbines. "Is it county elected representatives or a group of unelected bureaucrats? We say local government should make that final decision." Assistant Attorney General Kyle Crews said there are debatable issues raised by the county about the EFSEC statute, "but the actions of the governor, the applicant and EFSEC were all done lawfully."

Another wind energy company has jumped into the sweepstakes to build a wind farm along a ridge on state-owned timberland in east Clark County. It marks the latest sign that an already-booming wind industry is starting to trickle west across the Cascade Range. Horizon Wind Energy, which also is proposing a 120-megawatt project currently under court challenge by Kittitas County officials, filed an application to lease 5,400 acres from the state Department of Natural Resources in the Larch Mountain area of Clark County. By meeting a Monday deadline, Horizon will vie for the lease in an auction with a Portland-based subsidiary of enXco Inc.

The Washington state Supreme Court will hear a challenge June 26 to state authorization of a major new wind power project planned in Kittitas County. At issue is approval of Horizon Wind Energy LLC's Kittitas Valley project by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. A local citizens group called Kittitas County and Residents Opposed to Kittitas Turbines challenged the siting council's and the governor's authority to pre-empt local land use regulations as well as other legal matters.

A proposed wind farm development Washington is creating some controversy. While the plan is still in the very early stages, the designers envision placing wind turbines on a ridge near Larch Mountain, east of Battle Ground. ...A proposed wind farm development Washington is creating some controversy. While the plan is still in the very early stages, the designers envision placing wind turbines on a ridge near Larch Mountain, east of Battle Ground.

Southwest Washington is likely to see wind turbines on the horizon thanks to burgeoning demand for renewable energy in the region, according to developers of Clark County's first wind farm proposal. Representatives of a large energy developer eyeing a state-owned ridgeline in east Clark County indicated Wednesday that plenty of wind prospectors are scouring the landscape for potential wind farm locations. The company, enXco Inc., wants to lease state timberland to build as many as 39 skyscraper-high wind turbines near Larch Mountain. ...A west-side wind boom is no sure bet. That's because one of the biggest advantages to building wind farms west of the Cascades also is perhaps the biggest disadvantage: the presence of the majority of the region's population. ..."You get into this looming effect," said Allen Fiksdal, director of the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council. "It's a visual resource kind of issue.

A wind energy developer wants to lease state-owned forest to build as many as 39 skyscraper-high wind turbines along a ridge near Larch Mountain in east Clark County. The proposal, by a Portland-based subsidiary of enXco Inc., marks one of the first signs of westward migration for a wind energy boom that's already caused windmills the size of office towers to sprout across Eastern Washington. Washington's commissioner of public lands expects more to come. "There are significant opportunities," state lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland said Wednesday. Evergreen Wind Power Partners applied for the lease on about 5,400 acres of forest land owned by Sutherland's Department of Natural Resources.

The Skamania County prosecutor is asking a judge to throw a wind farm challenge out of court. Earlier, a citizens group filed suit against the county to stop a proposed wind farm near the Columbia Gorge. This is the third wind project to run into opposition in the Northwest recently, despite public votes in favor of more renewable energy. ...Elsewhere in the region, local landowners have not hesitated to file preemptory challenges to nip projects in the bud. On the Oregon side of the gorge by Mosier, a proposal for a 40 turbine wind farm is stuck in the gate as well.

Avista Corporation is looking to rural Lincoln County for their next big power project. But they aren't going to install a big electrical sub-station, or some high tension power lines, they're going to harness the wind. ..."Unfortunately wind is expensive, it's much more expensive than hydro, it is however cheaper than solar," said Hugh Imhof, spokesperson for Avista. But "greener" energy comes at a cost, something that will be reflected in rate increases. "It will be something that will be incorporated into the rate raise and it will probably mean an increase," said Imhof. "None of these things are cheap anymore."

The 69-turbine, $250 million wind farm proposed for seven miles west of Vantage was approved Tuesday by Kittitas County commissioners, and construction at the site could start in October. Commissioners Mark McClain and Alan Crankovich OK'd a final version of a development agreement with Invenergy Wind North America LLC after making minor changes to some of its provisions. Before a wind-farm building permit can be issued to the Chicago-based energy company, a list of requirements in the agreement must be met, said Darryl Piercy, director of county Community Development Services.

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.

Then came onto the Whisky Dick came the 9,100-acre Wild Horse facility, owned by Puget Sound Energy, 127 wind turbines ...Some feared they might end the area's sage grouse future. And now that a grouse and a nest have been found there? "I think it's still too early to know," said Mike Schroeder, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife upland bird research biologist considered the state's foremost expert on sage grouse. "One, it's just one nest. I've had sage grouse nest in wheat fields where there was absolutely zero chance of success. You have birds that do strange things. ..."There are issues -- the blades killing birds, the blades killing bats," said Andy Stepniewski, author of "The Birds of Yakima County" and program chair of the Yakima Valley Audubon. "The bigger issue is the footprint, the habitat fragmentation. The footprint of each one is a lot bigger than one can imagine, because of the size of the machine, the size of the road; these are enormous trucks that bring these huge turbines in there. "The habitat is significantly impacted.

Puget Sound Energy will seek approval to add about 25 turbines to its Wild Horse Wind Power Project, constructing the new towers both inside and outside the existing 127-turbine project. The Bellevue-based private utility announced the planned expansion will include turbine sites on a newly purchased 1,400-acre tract immediately north of the existing wind farm that now takes in 9,150 acres, according to a news release. ...“It’s planned to locate added turbines inside the project as in-fill, and on the new property,” Lenz said Wednesday. “The 25 we’re looking at now is an estimate. It could be more or less.”

Kittitas County commissioners have affirmed that planned turbine locations in a proposed wind farm should be moved to comply with the required setback distance from two residences that exist near the project east of Ellensburg. ...The company is proposing to construct and operate the 69-turbine Vantage Wind Power Project 15 miles east of Ellensburg between Vantage Highway and Interstate 90. After reviewing the proposed agreement page by page and suggesting changes, commissioners agreed to meet again at 2 p.m. May 6 to examine a final, updated copy of the document. Commissioners may take final action at that time to approve the estimated $300 million project located about seven miles west of Vantage. The project is within the county's wind energy overlay zone, an about 500-square-mile area on the east end of the county that has been pre-identified as generally compatible with wind farm developments.