Owners of a wind-power company set to erect 22 turbines on local hills have decided to delay the project by a year because the energy market has fallen in the recession. Record Hill Wind LLC is building a $120 million wind farm along the 4-mile ridgeline that connects Partridge Peak, Record Hill and Flathead Mountain. The company had planned to put up the turbines next year, but now says it will be up and running in 2011.

Saying that they are paying close attention to Vinalhaven's community wind project, town officials this week agreed to a preliminary feasibility study for a wind project atop Ragged Mountain. While no project is now in the pipeline, anemometers placed on the mountain three years ago found that the town has "a serious wind resource," said Jeff Lewis, chairman of the Camden Energy Committee. ...Any project ultimately would be put to a town vote, Lewis said. That won't be a slam-dunk for wind power proponents, according to Baker. "If you thought Vinalhaven was iconic, try messing around with the Camden Hills," he said.

The city thought it was ahead of the curve back in 2007 when it bought a windmill that was supposed to provide power for a transportation center built around a station for the Downeaster train. The $200,000 windmill never came close to meeting expectations, but even that was OK. The city had an agreement in which the manufacturer would pay the difference between the value of the anticipated electricity and the value of the actual output.

Robert Gardiner, a public broadcasting executive-turned-wind power developer, fielded questions from the audience about the so-called Highland Wind project. It's a $250 million development that would place 48 wind turbines in a single-file, southeasterly row along four peaks. It would likely be visible from the Appalachian Trail. ...I'm very concerned about the mountaintop removal," says Greg Perkins, the owner of the home in Highland Plantation that would be closest to the wind farm, about a half-mile away. He's also a soil scientist. "I really think we need to rethink this whole wind power thing in Maine. It doesn't create that much energy and for what we're losing, there's no balance to it. So I really think we need to rethink it."

Folks living in Dixmont voted Thursday night on an ordinance that would regulate wind power development in their town. The issue arose when a company began looking into the prospect of placing ten wind turbines along Mount Harris in Dixmont. For the past nine months the local planning board has been researching the effects of such projects on residents living nearby.

Longtime environmental activist and wind-power supporter Jonathan Carter of Lexington Township joined forces this month with a grassroots coalition trying to stop sprawling industrial wind farms atop Maine's mountains. Carter, a former Green Party gubernatorial candidate, is the director of the Forest Ecology Network, which was created to protect, preserve and defend Maine's native forest environment through public awareness, grassroots citizen activism and education, according to its Web site. ..."This isn't simply (not in my backyard)," Carter said. "These mountaintops are unique. They're rare. To destroy them is, in my thinking, extremely inappropriate and shortsighted."

Dignitaries, schoolchildren and more than 400 islanders crowded Tuesday morning around the base of a massive wind turbine to officially dedicate the Fox Islands Wind Project. ...While it seemed clear that the vast majority of residents at the ceremony were thrilled with "their" turbines, a small but vocal group of islanders who live close to the turbines has expressed deep concerns about the noise, flickering red lights and potential negative effects on health and well-being. "Last night, it was just throbbing," said David Wylie, who lives about a half mile from the turbines. "Whump, whump, whump."

Supporters of liquefied natural gas terminals have thrown a late snag into what has been an orderly process to create rules for developing multibillion-dollar energy corridors in Maine. LNG representatives want to extend the current moratorium on energy corridors and create a government commission to do more reviews. Their proposal was filed late last week with the special study group already debating policy for energy corridors.

In the distance, the dark, low expanse of the island is punctuated by three white lines jutting through the horizon. Three giant wind turbines rise from the interior of the island, visible from miles away, above pines, above homes, above Vinalhaven's granite bones. And on Tuesday, the $14.5 million Fox Islands Wind project officially goes on line with a ribbon-cutting event ...The Lindgrens said the noise can be more intrusive then they were led to believe it would be. The noise is constant, said Britta Lindgren, like a jet passing overhead, "but it never passes." And there's an odd pressure in the air, indefinable, like low frequencies that have begun since the turbines started.

Two groups came to the Maine Statehouse on Monday to ask the state to slow down wind power development, which they say is gobbling up environmentally sensitive mountain ridges for questionable results. The Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power said it wants to work with state officials to reconsider statewide goals the group says will put turbines atop 360 miles of the state's mountaintops. The group formed recently in opposition to a project under way in Roxbury near Rumford.

While government, private and educational entities work in earnest to bring large-scale wind turbines to Maine, a newly formed group of concerned residents says the promises being made to Maine people are too good to be true. Wind turbines can be as loud as an airliner, as ugly as an oil derrick and as damaging to the environment as a clear-cut, according to members of the Citizens Task Force on Wind Power.

More than 60 people turned out Friday night for the first public informational meeting on a proposed wind farm project on a ridgeline in Dixfield and Canton. Most spoke against siting a wind farm on the Colonel Holman Mountain ridge, stating beliefs that noise and shadow flicker could cause a variety of illnesses in people who live within 2 miles of a turbine. Three of the four speakers were opposed to wind turbines.

Selectmen and a large crowd at Thursday night's board meeting came to hear a presentation by Boston-based wind power company First Wind on its proposed Longfellow wind farm project for Black Mountain and North and South Twin mountains. Instead, everyone learned that such a project might not even be viable, because First Wind studies so far show that wind atop Black Mountain is too strong for wind turbine engineering to handle, said Matthew Kearns, vice president of business development for First Wind.

Harvard inked a deal yesterday to purchase 10 percent of annual electricity consumed on its Cambridge and Allston campuses from a leading wind provider in New England. This agreement, in which Harvard will acquire over 30 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, slates the University to become the largest institutional buyer of wind power in the region, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ...Harvard will purchase 50 percent of the energy produced from First Wind's soon-to-be constructed wind farm in northern Maine for the next 15 years.

Dozens of people listened to five speakers give their views on wind energy at a forum Friday. Linda Walbridge, of the Western Maine Economic Development Council, said the goal of the forum was to help residents make informed decisions about wind power on a local level. The speakers included one proponent and one opponent of wind power, a sound permitting specialist and two people involved with proposed wind turbine projects in Oxford Hills.

Residents got a chance to ask a panel of experts about what wind development, and passing the ordinance would mean for them. It was clear from the number of cards being filled out, people in Dixmont had a lot of questions about wind power development in their town, which currently has a moratorium on wind power development. That measure was put in place to give the town time to draft an ordinance to regulate development. The planning board has completed the first draft of that ordinance, and Monday, residents got a chance to anonymously ask a panel of experts about it.

Under the whisper of a whirling 410-foot wind turbine, 250 people stood at the top of Kibby Mountain today to help celebrate the start-up of half of TransCanada's $320 million Kibby Wind Power Project and, somewhat unexpectedly, hear plans for the expansion of Kibby's 44-windmill project by adding 15 more on nearby Sisk Mountain. The proposed $100 million expansion project on Sisk Mountain would be located just west of the Kibby range and mountain project.

Though Lynne Williams supports alternative energy production and doesn't oppose the use of windmills to create it, she is fighting wind power in Maine just about every way she can. A Bar Harbor attorney representing the Friends of Lincoln Lakes, Williams is pursuing two appeals of decisions that, if reaffirmed, would help clear the way for an industrial wind site on Rollins Mountain ridgelines in Burlington, Lee, Lincoln and Winn.

At least two foreign business groups plan to visit Maine to explore wind power investment possibilities, following the governor's trade mission to Spain, Germany and Norway last month. StatoilHydro is expected in mid-November. The Norwegian energy giant has the only deep-water wind turbine off its coast, and it has an agreement with the University of Maine to explore the feasibility of putting such a turbine in the Gulf of Maine.

Questions ranging from how installing wind turbines might affect tourism and wildlife, to beliefs that such devices could cause physical and mental illnesses were put forth by some of the members of a panel Tuesday night that explored the possible ramifications of building a wind farm atop three local mountains. Conspicuously absent were representatives from First Wind LLC, the Newton, Mass.