The Arizona Corporation Commission has a mandate in place requiring that at least 15 percent of the state's energy come from renewable sources by the year 2025. But despite its intention to wean the state off fossil fuels, the move has drawn vocal criticism from free-market advocates such as the Goldwater Institute, which claims the mandate will cost utility customers billions over the next 15 years.

Transmitting electricity over hundreds of miles to market constrains wind energy development, speakers told 600 participants at a conference at the University of Wyoming last week. So do local, state and federal regulation; and taxation issues, they said. But Laura Ladd, energy economics advisor to Gov. Dave Freudenthal, noted a major omission to that list. "Nowhere in here did we hear of economics as a constraint," Ladd said.

A start-up wind company official said with federal stimulus funding and state permits, the doors to the former Bayliner plant at Mexico Farms could have local people back to work by the holiday season. John Congedo, president of AC~Wind, listed online with a Grantsville address, told the Times-News Tuesday that AC~Wind has contracted with Brunswick Corp., parent company of Bayliner, to use its facilities in Cumberland and Salisbury.

Freedom residents who hoped the wind turbines on Beaver Ridge would bring a lower tax bill got a surprise this year as other factors sucked up most of the windfall. ...Freedom town officials, with help from the state, valued the Beaver Ridge development at $9.7 million and the Central Maine Power transmission lines running up the ridge at an additional $480,000. But the value added to the town made barely a dent in the mill rate, which went from 17 to 15.5.

Among the first Indiana residents to experience life near industrial wind turbines, Buchanan has yet to arrive at a final judgment of his 260-foot-tall neighbors, which went operational in March. "They growl at you," he says. "The quiet of the rural area I have enjoyed most of my life, I probably will not be able to experience that again." ...Financially, "it's enormous," says Buchanan, who farms several thousand acres with family. "If you offer me the opportunity to have four towers that generate $30,000 to $40,000, that's a lot of corn and soybeans."

Only 15 months ago, Duluth-based Minnesota Power asked for its first rate increase in 14 years. Now, it wants another one. In seeking a new rate increase before the end of 2009, the utility is citing, in part, the cost of increasing renewable-energy generation; under 2007 state legislation, utilities must generate a quarter of their energy from renewable resources by 2025.

This economy, proponents say, promises to rebuild communities abandoned by bankrupt manufacturers, restore jobs lost by the busted housing market and reinstate America as a global leader. Not so fast. Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says renewable energy has the potential to create "tens of thousands of jobs" in Nevada and more than a million nationwide, little research has been done on actual job creation in such an unchartered area.

Cistercian nuns are moving from Prairie du Sac, but a site for a new monastery in the Town of Ridgeville is no longer one of several considered by the religious community. According to Sister Roberta Boyer ...the Ridgeville site, land owned by Ryszard Borys, was taken off the table because of the wind farm situation in the township.

Get ready for a series of major investments and associated rate increases by Portland General Electric Co. ...The Portland-based utility told financial analysts Thursday that it was pulling the plug on a near-term plan to add 218 megawatts of new wind power because of financial market conditions. The company still plans, however, to complete the ongoing expansion of its Biglow Canyon wind farm and add another 300 to 400 megawatts of wind or other renewable power to meet Oregon's renewable energy standard by 2015.

The equation changed in the winter, when layoffs hit the wind industry hard, Shamblin said. Unemployment for June was 6.7 percent, still below the state average but the highest in Nolan County since at least 2000. Rainey would hear again from his former employees around March, after the completion of some wind construction projects. "When it all shut down, all four of them came back looking for a job. By then, it'd slowed down for us, too," Rainey said.

Wind farms generate a lot of electricity, but not a large number of permanent jobs once the construction phase is over. And although the projects are desirable because they use an abundant renewable natural resource, the only significant revenue the units are generating in Wyoming at this point is through property taxes in the counties where they are located. Their property tax bills so far are modest.

In employment terms, wind farms are large construction projects. Most of the jobs are temporary. Permanent jobs that might be considered wholly wind energy related are few in number. Greg Efthimiou, a spokesman for Duke Energy, said peak employment during construction at the Campbell Hill project near Casper is expected to be about 150 workers. The company will erect 66, 1.5-megawatt General Electric wind turbines in the Cole Creek drainage.

The Federal Government's renewable energy targets will hit hospitals hard, increasing operating costs by millions of dollars every year, a Senate inquiry has been told. Labor plans to drive investment in renewable energy and wants a target of having 20 per cent of electricity coming from green sources by 2020.

Danish company Vestas Windsystems, the owners of a wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight have fenced off the entrance to the site, where about 25 staff are on the third day of a sit-in. ...The company said the factory was being closed next week due to reduced demand for wind turbines in northern Europe. ... A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said the plant made blades for the US market which were not the right specification for onshore or offshore wind farms in the UK.

Tasmania's first wind-power generator is planning to lay off nine workers as it continues to rationalise its business. Roaring 40s -- a 50-50 joint venture between Hydro Tasmania and Chinese Light and Power -- employs 54 Tasmanian staff plus contractors. ...Sixty turbines will be erected at Cape Portland and a new transmission line will connect the wind farm to the Tasmanian electricity grid at Derby.

Austin Energy, Austin's municipal power utility, was the first in the nation to give consumers the option of buying green-powered electricity. And as recently as last year the city's green power program, called GreenChoice, was number one in the nation, in terms of sales. This year, 99% of the city's allotment of green power remains unsold, even after seven months on the market, according to the Austin Statesman.

On Wednesday Mr Miliband acknowledged that low-carbon energy would be more expensive for consumers, but pointed out that high-carbon fuels like coal and gas could also be expected to get more expensive because of increased demand from China and India. "We are going to minimise the costs as much as possible, but it is true there is not a low-cost energy future out there.

The Glenfiddich distillery in Dufftown will host a major public meeting in Moray against plans to site a wind farm in the heart of the whisky trail. ...Tourists have flocked to Moray's famous whisky trail for decades, but owners of the distillery fear visitor numbers could dry up if the plans for nearly 60 turbines get the go ahead on the nearby Glenfiddich estate which is owned by London financier Christopher Morran.

Sharon Reid and her husband, Dewitt, a retired Marine major, pay $170 in a typical month ---- and some months more than $230 ---- to cool and light their 2,000-square-foot, tri-level home in Vista. Without making any changes in lifestyle, their electricity bill is likely to increase by $45 a month on average as California overhauls its power grid and tries to shift the source of one-third of its electricity from fossil fuels to green sources by 2020.