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."

Two years ago, a company started looking into the potential for placing wind turbines along Mt. Harris in Dixmont. Since then, local residents have been talking about what that could mean for them-- and Thursday, the issue comes to a vote. Mt. Harris Wind had plans to build about ten turbines along this ridge in Dixmont, says project partner Andrew Price.

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.

The Altamont is the world's oldest wind farm with some 5,000 power-generating turbines covering 50 square miles on the Alameda County border. While generating good green power for the state, it has a bad reputation for killing birds. The wind turbines on the gusty Altamont Pass were installed after the energy crisis in the 1970s. Today, the world's oldest wind farm powers an average of 100,000 homes with clean green energy. But environmentalists say it comes at a steep price.

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.

A proposal to build the first wind farm in Western Washington may stall, and may even be doomed, because of concern that turbine blades would kill members of an endangered bird species, a state lawmaker says. "I'm just not feeling real confident that this is going to grab hold and move forward very fast," Rep. Dean Takko, D-Longview, said last week. "There are key players who aren't very supportive, and I think it's going to hold this up. Is it going to kill it? I don't know."

Bill Evans wants to make it clear he's not against wind turbines. "I'm not anti-wind. I'm a consultant who people call from both sides when there's a concern about the impact on migrating birds," he said. Evans, 50, is an Ithaca-based ornithologist who has studied bird migration in North America for more than 25 years. He helped start the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's research into avian night flight calls in the mid-1990s and in 1998 founded the non-profit group Old Bird Inc.

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.

Maine's quest to become a leader in developing an alternative energy industry has plenty of support in Augusta and Orono, but along the shoreline people are more wary. While some see the development of offshore wind energy as a powerful engine for economic growth in Maine, many in the state's beleaguered lobster industry fear that wind farms will be just one more item on a growing list of obstacles to fishing in the Gulf of Maine. Last month, the state's Ocean Energy Task Force tentatively identified four sites along the Maine coast as potential locations for testing offshore wind generators.

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.

Proponents of small wind systems got a lift this week when the county attorney said a proposed bill designed to streamline the permitting process would not open the county to legal or financial liability should an applicant's windmill kill an endangered seabird. The announcement, delivered by Deputy County Attorney Ian Jung, who specializes in planning issues and advises the Kaua‘i Planning Commission. ...While Jung's statement could go a long way to resolving one issue standing in the way of the bill's passage, there are several other factors that have yet to be addressed.