A committee charged with determining what kind of tax incentives Sullivan County should offer a wind energy committee has been delayed. They were supposed to offer their recommendations to the county commission late last month, but scheduling conflicts got in the way. Presiding Commissioner Chris May tells KTVO he expects to hear from the committee in the next few weeks. May hopes wind energy will help with economic development in Sullivan County, it the same way it's benefitting other rural communites.

At 265 feet tall, four gleaming white wind turbines tower over the tiny farm town of Rock Port, Missouri, like a landing of alien intruders. But despite their imposing presence and the stark contrast with the rolling pastures and corn fields, the turbines have received a warm welcome here. ...Last year, a record 3,100 turbines were installed across 34 U.S. states and another 2,000 turbines are now under construction from California to Massachusetts. In all, there are about more than 25,000 U.S. turbines in operation, an investment of $15 billion. On May 12, the U.S. Energy Department said wind power could provide 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, or 304 gigawatts, up from the current 16.8 gigawatts. Achieving that will require that wind turbine installations rise to almost 7,000 a year by 2017, the department said.

Kacprowicz said the city is on a learning curve with implementing renewable sources of energy and is still finding out how much the wind power fluctuates and what to expect. Added to the uncertainty is that Columbia wasn't guaranteed transmission of the power it was contracted to purchase from the wind farm until Feb. 1 because of overloaded transmission lines, Kacprowicz said. Once the city was guaranteed transmission of its wind power in February, it was notified that 11 of the 27 turbines at the wind farm were out of service because of cracked blades, which reduced the amount of power Columbia received.

The wind energy company founded by Tom Carnahan is getting a $150 million investment from Ireland-based NTR PLC - a financial boost that Carnahan says will help transform Wind Capital Group LLC. NTR will provide cash and supply 150 megawatts of wind turbines for delivery to Wind Capital in 2010, Carnahan said in an interview. In return, NTR will get an undisclosed stake in the company. ...Earlier this week, Wind Capital agreed to sell a 400-megawatt wind farm site in southern Minnesota to a subsidiary of Wisconsin-based Alliant Energy Corp. In December, the company sold a 200-megawatt wind farm site in Iowa to Alliant.

The Gentry County Commission will rely on a technicality in its fight against a civil lawsuit surrounding a new wind farm. Charles Allen Porter filed the federal court lawsuit in late March against the commission and Associate Commissioner Gary Carlson. Mr. Porter alleged that Mr. Carlson assaulted him over his opposition to the Bluegrass Ridge Wind Farm located near King City. He also said the facility has harmed his family, destroyed his property and caused him to lose sleep. Several wind turbines are located within 2,000 feet of Mr. Porter's property. ..."Because plaintiff has failed to properly serve process upon the county, the court is without jurisdiction over the county," Mr. Coronado said. The only other means of proper service would have been through the county clerk, he said. Attorney Charles Speer said he intends to serve the county, this time ensuring Mr. Dollars and the county clerk's office receive the paperwork.

Charles Speer, a Kansas City attorney representing Mr. Porter, noted the family relationships involved and offered his initial goals for the case. "My intent is to calm tensions" and find a resolution to the dispute, he said. He said his client opposed the wind farm from the very start and has researched the health impacts of the facilities. According to the lawsuit, Charles Porter and his family - including an 11-year-old daughter - have suffered from a strobe light the towers emit twice daily, loud noise caused by the turbines, destruction of property, loss of sleep, and other factors linked to the project.

Kansas City Power & Light has tabled plans to build in 2008 its second 100-megawatt wind farm, citing difficulties in getting financing. The wind farm was promised by KCP&L as part of a comprehensive energy plan that included the coal-fired Iatan 2 plant, under construction near Weston. The plan, announced last March by the utility and the Sierra Club, was hailed as the first of its kind and included building 400 megawatts of wind energy by 2012. The utility, which this week acknowledged construction cost overruns at Iatan 2, is putting off the wind project at a time when other utilities are stepping up their wind-energy construction. The decision also means KCP&L won't take advantage of federal wind energy tax credits that expire at the end of the year.

They're there to see the Bluegrass Ridge Farm, the first commercial wind farm in Missouri. It's enormous, a commanding and surreal presence that changed the landscape of the northwest Missouri town. ...As the turbines' massive blades cut through the wind, it sounds a bit like a rumbling jet passing overhead. It's way more than Charlie Porter bargained for. Porter, who owns 20 acres in King City, has no turbines on his property but several near his home. Those turbines, he said, "have ruined our lives." "If you don't live underneath one of them and you drive down the highway, they look kind of neat," Porter said. "But for us, it's been a nightmare. They've ruined the equity in our home. The noise keeps us up at night. The shadows invade our home." Other concerns about wind farms include disruption to the land, visual blight and the risk they pose to birds.

Jim McCarty of the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives said he doesn't expect the wind to really start humming until fall and spring. "That's actually one of the drawbacks of wind energy," McCarty said. "It's going to work best when you really don't need power that much. When you think of springtime when the wind is blowing and people are out flying kites, that's when you have windows open, and you're not running your furnaces as much." ..."It's never going to shut down the big power plants," McCarty said. "It's always going to be supplementary power, but when it blows, it's great."

Wind power was supposed to become part of Columbia's energy mix on Sunday, but delays at the wind farm providing the electricity and ongoing bureaucratic holdups stand in the way. Wind turbines at the King City farm in northwest Missouri are up and running, but the electricity is not yet available for Columbia to purchase because of testing delays, said Nancy Southworth, a spokeswoman for Associated Electric Cooperative. Columbia, meanwhile, continues to negotiate with the regulatory body that oversees power transmission in the Midwest about whether there is enough space in the regional electrical grid to get the wind power to Columbia.

COLUMBIA - The City of Columbia is looking for new ways to generate electricity. The search is part of a new plan to add a little green to the city's power. The City of Columbia wants to start working with the University of Missouri to measure wind speed so local wind energy might someday be used to power parts of the city. The City Council gave the green light to install wind measuring devices called anemometers to track wind speed in the area.

It might be worth showing up at the Columbia City Council meeting tomorrow night just to hear folks try to pronounce "anemometer." That's the device the city wants to put on top of the KOMU-TV tower south of town to measure wind speeds. City officials want to find out whether there's enough wind to generate electricity for local use. The city council is slated to vote on a resolution recommended by city staff calling for the city to pay $11,626 to the Department of Soil, Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Missouri-Columbia to install the device and record the data.

The problem, Dasho said, is in the amount of energy that MISO will allow in the electrical transmission system. The 7 megawatts of wind power would put the Southwest Power Pool's system, which is tied to Associated Electric's system, over capacity by 0.3 megawatts.

The bill encourages the development and utilization of technically feasible and economical technologies, creating cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy for the residents of Missouri. It sets targets for electricity generation from renewable fuel sources and features an amendment allowing citizens to generate their own energy to offset overall energy consumption - a process called "net metering."

CAMBRIA, Wis. -- With empty storefronts on the main drag and corn stubble stretching for miles in the surrounding hills, this fading farm town seems like a natural stop for the ethanol express. Not to John Mueller, though. The 54-year-old stay-at-home dad has led a dogged battle to prevent a corn mill from building an ethanol plant up the hill from the village school. Concerned about air pollution, the water supply and the mill's environmental track record, Mr. Mueller and his group, Cambrians for Thoughtful Development, have blitzed the village's 800 residents with fliers, packed public meetings and set up a sophisticated Web site. The mill has fought back with its own publicity campaign and local corn farmers have taken to the streets in tractors to show support. Now, as the mill races to build the $70 million plant, the matter is headed to the federal courthouse in Madison, 40 miles southwest.

The Sierra Club and Kansas City Power & Light Co. have signed an unusual accord in which the utility agreed to offset all the greenhouse gas emissions from a new coal-fired plant by adding wind power and taking steps to conserve energy on a large scale. The Kansas City utility, which serves half a million customers in western Missouri and eastern Kansas, also pledged to cooperate with the Sierra Club on legislative and regulatory changes that would reduce the company's overall emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 percent by the year 2020. In return, the Sierra Club will end its campaign against the utility's 850-megawatt coal-fired plant under construction in Missouri.

Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative announced Nov. 22 that the Wind Capitol Group, along with John Deere, Missouri’s electric cooperatives and local landowners will take part in a Missouri wind farm project. The project farm will be in northwest Missouri, along with two other wind farms.

Local voters approved a law in 2004 that requires Water and Light to devote part of its energy portfolio to renewable sources such as wind or landfill gas. The law requires that 2 percent of the city’s electricity come from renewables by 2008. Power from the wind farm should account for about 1 percent of the city’s output, a spokeswoman for the city utility said. The city should start receiving energy from Bluegrass Ridge early next year. "I’m proud of Columbia for its commitment to sustainable, renewable energy," Mayor Darwin Hindman said. "This city already has had a good record of programs dedicating to conserving energy, … but that will only go so far."

KING CITY, Mo. - When one of northwest Missouri's leading employers decided to shutter a nearby manufacturing plant and ship 220 jobs to Mexico, the move was only the latest economic blow to a region accustomed to bad news. From a steadily dwindling population to the well-documented decline of family farms, hard times have been the norm all too often in the cluster of Missouri counties along the Nebraska and Iowa borders. Then came promises of economic salvation - or at least a step in the right direction - in the unlikely guise of a sharp-dressed St. Louis lawyer and scion of the one of the state's most prominent political families. His remedy was simple: look up to the sky. Farmers who once relied upon hogs or soybeans to make ends meet are now harvesting wind energy. By next year, more than 100 towering turbines are expected to rise above the skyline in Atchison, Gentry and Nodaway counties, generating enough electricity to power 45,000 homes across the state as part of Missouri's first set of commercial wind farms.

For the third time, Wind Capital Group, John Deere and Missouri cooperatives have announced plans to build another utility-scale wind farm. The $75 million wind farm is slated to operate in northwest Missouri by the end of 2007.