No surprises here. The staff of the State Corporation Commission has concluded Highland New Wind Development’s proposal does not pose a problem for most of the requirements needed to acquire a state level permit. The one critical area SCC staff chose to leave in the hands of others is the potential environmental impacts created by the project related principally to avian wildlife.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources opposes open lake wind turbines such as the ones that an energy task force has urged Cuyahoga County commissioners build on Lake Erie, a state wildlife biologist said. Mark Shieldcastle, who spoke to the Greater Akron Audubon Society on Tuesday night at the Sand Run Metro Park in Summit County, said it would be nearly impossible to monitor the mortality rates of migratory birds killed by open water turbines. “We’re trying to get land-based studies first,” said Shieldcastle, a wildlife biologist with the Crane Creek Wildlife Research Station between Sandusky and Toledo. “There are a lot more ramifications and challenges to look at the risks to birds in open water. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Standing outside the home of Bill and Rosina Martz along the Susquehanna River, it's easy to see Mahantongo Mountain and even easier to imagine how the landscape would change once 33 or more wind turbines are built. Gamesa Energy of Spain plans to build a 50-megawatt wind farm along the summit of Mahantongo Mountain. Township officials and local residents say the company is looking at a six-mile section of the mountain, starting near Route 147 north of Millersburg and running east to Deibler's Gap in Mifflin Twp. That size wind farm would require about 33 turbines, each of which would stand 416 feet above the mountain ridge with a single propeller blade reaching nearly 300 feet from end to end. They would be spaced about 1,000 feet apart.

How power-generating wind turbines affect birds and bats figured prominently in testimony Thursday as a county hearing on the proposed White Oak Wind Energy Center entered its third day. Paul Kerlinger, a bird migration and ecology expert from Cape May Point, N.J., spoke before the McLean County Zoning Board of Appeals. About 160 people attended the hearing at Heartland Community College.

Crab fishermen don’t want to get pushed off their fishing ground by a wind energy project in Hecate Strait. Geoff Gould, director for Area A Crab Association says crab fishermen are competing with Nai Kun Wind Development for the same 550 square kilometre piece of real estate in Hecate Strait.

Two golden eagles that soared along the Allegheny Front ridge in Central Pennsylvania late last year and are now gliding over the hills of West Virginia and Kentucky might one day help determine where new windmills will be built in Pennsylvania and elsewhere in the East. The wide-winged raptors are wearing tiny radio telemetry transmitters that allow National Aviary researchers to track their migration routes and eventually develop the first bird's-eye-view data showing where electric wind turbines should be built and not built to minimize the killing of eagles and other big birds. Most wind turbine development has occurred without any scientific research on the consequences to migrating birds, according to Todd Katzner, director of conservation and field research at the National Aviary on the North Side. That has increased the risk that the turbine blades, some more than 100 feet long, will become bird slicers and dicers.

The RSPB is objecting to a controversial plan to build the West’s biggest wind farm next to the Bristol Channel, we can reveal. Experts from the bird charity are unhappy with the proposal for nine 110m (361ft) turbines at West Hinkley, beside Hinkley Point nuclear power station. They say more work should be done on the wind farm’s possible impact on nearby birds in the Severn estuary, especially shelduck, ringed plover and curlews.

The big wind farm debate rumbled on this week as the RSPB again signalled its opposition to the nine-turbine plan for West Hinkley. The society stood against Your Energy’s proposals when they were first submitted in 2004. Giant turbines, RSPB representatives say, would have a detrimental effect on the birds living around the site.

Victorian Nationals leader Peter Ryan says the approval of the Bald Hills wind farm in South Gippsland has divided the community. Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has changed his previous decision to block the project. Senator Campbell originally withdrew approval for the wind farm, saying it could threaten the orange-bellied parrot. Mr Ryan says Bald Hills is an inappropriate location and it is up to the State Government to create a better planning scheme for wind farms.

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has given the go-ahead for the $220 million Bald Hills wind farm, reversing a controversial decision based on a perceived threat to the rare orange-bellied parrot. Senator Campbell today said the wind farm had been given federal approval subject to key changes to the turbine layout and strict conditions to protect the parrot and other threatened species. But local Liberal MP Russell Broadebent and environment groups immediately attacked the reversal.

A resolution to officially oppose 40 planned windmills just outside of town is expected to be approved at tonight’s City Council meeting. “There’s nothing binding. It’s just a resolution to the Board of Supervisors of Riverside County” declaring the council’s position, Councilwoman Yvonne Parks said. Windmill developer PPM Energy of Portland, Ore., is proposing the project and must ask for several variances from the county Planning Commission to do so. The project must ultimately be approved by the county Board of Supervisors. The City Council’s opposition comes in conjunction with a grass-roots movement by residents to stop the 327-foot wind turbines.

In an effort to limit bat and bird kills by windmills, the Pennsylvania Game Commission yesterday suggested a voluntary agreement with wind-farm developers. The proposal is an “intermediate step” in protecting birds and bats from the whirling blades, said William A. Capouillez, director of the Bureau of Wildlife Habitat Management. “It’s not quite where we want to be from a regulatory standpoint, but it’s better than what we have now,” he said. “No other state has anything similar.” The Game Commission is charged with protecting all the state’s wildlife.

Plans to build the world’s biggest onshore wind farm on the Western Isles could be thwarted by European officials, who believe they breach laws protecting sensitive wildlife habitats. The European commission believes that proposals to build more than 180 turbines on Lewis are flawed, because developers have failed to assess other less sensitive sites across Scotland. The Lewis turbines, each more than 460ft high, would stretch for more than 25 miles through peatland protected under European Union conservation laws. The area is home to eight species of Europe’s most endangered birds, including golden eagles, red-throated divers and merlin.

After being twice urged to do so by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Liberty Gap LLC has volunteered to seek a permit for the incidental “take” of endangered species. In doing so, the company has asked the West Virginia Public Service Commission not to consider its proposed wind energy project’s impacts on other wildlife. But PSC staff has urged the commission to deny that request.

The long-running battle between country folk and government over windfarms took a new twist today as a war broke out between the Scottish Executive and a conservation body which has called for more “green” electricity generation. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and its Scottish branch have in the past angered many rural communities for being outspoken supporters of wind farms - which mainly serve towns and cities but are always located in the countryside. But the Scottish RSPB today issued an outspoken protest about re-designed plans to build the UK’s largest windfarm on the Isle of Lewis, in the Western Isles, which it says is “one of Scotland’s most sensitive and important sites for wildlife.”

Both supporters and opponents of the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm are hailing the findings of recent research on the environmental impact of Danish offshore wind turbines. Supporters of Cape Wind Associates' plan to build 130 wind turbines in Nantucket Sound say the research released last week at an international conference supports their contention that wind farms pose little threat to wildlife. But Cape Wind foes say the Danish research highlights the need to carefully study the environmental impact of offshore wind turbines on a case-by-case basis.

Synergics Wind Energy is appealing the Oct. 30 decision made by hearing examiner David L. Moore, Maryland Public Service Commission. The examiner had approved the company’s application to build wind turbines in Garrett County, but with several environmental restrictions. At the October hearing, Moore okayed 24 conditions recommended by the Department of Natural Resources, including one that would prevent construction of the wind turbines in two areas in order to help preserve habitat for rare species.

Save the planet or preserve the planet? It is this dilemma which has caused so much consternation among environmental groups. For many green groups, wind farms are an embodiment of a necessary evil. We must reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, and wind energy is a clean alternative – seen by many as preferable to nuclear power, with its questionable safety reputation and problems with waste disposal. However, there is no doubting that some of the best sites for wind farms – windswept moorland, remote rural areas – are also some of the most ecological fragile. Here wildlife, including some of Scotland’s most threatened species, can have a tentative hold on life. Place a wind farm in its midst and the environmental balance could be affected.

A National Audubon Society chapter based in the Twin Cities has withdrawn its opposition to a proposed wind farm near the Mackinaw River on the Woodford-McLean county line. Angelo Capperella, spokesman for the John Wesley Powell Chapter of the Audubon Society, plans to be at the McLean County Zoning Board of Appeals hearing Tuesday on a special use permit the Chicago-based Ivenergy Wind LLC has requested for its White Oak Wind Energy Project. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in rooms 1406-1407 of the Community Commons Building at Heartland Community College. Invenergy LLC isn’t out of the woods yet, however. McLean County Department of Building and Zoning director Phil Dick said his office has received several requests from residents in the area of the proposed wind farm asking that the hearing be continued.

The caribou are major, albeit silent, figures in a growing debate over whether to reroute a proposed massive transmission corridor that would carry electricity from Manitoba to the Toronto area, so that it could also tie in to hydro and wind sources in Northern Ontario.