A dispute over transmission lines for the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm landed in court this week. ...Barnstable officials filed a complaint in Barnstable Superior Court Wednesday claiming the Cape Cod Commission has exclusive jurisdiction over the transmission cables that would link the turbines to the shoreline. In October, the commission rejected a plan to have the transmission cables make landfall in Barnstable, and Cape Wind appealed that decision to the state Energy Facilities Siting Board. In the complaint filed Wednesday, Barnstable officials contend the state Energy Facilities Siting Board does not have the authority to review the commission's denial of the transmission lines.

State Department of Agriculture and Markets law dictates that Dr. Daniel Melamed can have a wind turbine to produce power for his goat and sheep farm and the only aspect related to the apparatus that town officials can regulate is the height. That is the message attorney Robert Fitzsimmons conveyed to the town's Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) at an April 8 special meeting called to review Dr. Melamed's area variance application and supporting documentation for relief from the town zoning law's 75-foot-height limit. The meeting was also a continued public hearing on the matter. ...Farmer Ed Hull, Dr. Melamed's neighbor, said he did not understand why the doctor could not install more solar panels to produce more power instead of installing a wind turbine. Mr. Hull said he feared the noise and vibration from the wind turbine would present health risks to him and his family. "I live right across [from the wind turbine site]. Does one farmer trump another farmer? What if there are ill effects? Can you guarantee there will be no effects to myself or my family?" questioned Mr. Hull.

A Campaign to halt a proposed wind farm on Sheffield parkland is picking up speed. Protesters this week lobbied leading councillors in their attempts to blow away the plans for Westwood Country Park at High Green. And they pointed to opposition from their local MP, Angela Smith, who says the park is "totally unsuitable" for a wind farm, partly because it would be near hundreds of homes. Andy Redfern, who chairs the action group, Save Westwood Country Park, said: "The storm that this has elicited in local people is quite tangible. ...Mr Redfern asked councillors: "Given this is a piece of green belt land and Hillsborough MP Angela Smith opposes these plans, as do local residents, will you abandon the plans? No other windfarms are near so many homes. Please stop this madness."

If you have a hankering to see Britain's green and pleasant countryside or its rugged coastline, you shouldn't wait too long. They are both likely to disappear soon under thousands of massive, swirling, 400-foot wind turbines. Recently, U.K. Industry Secretary John Hutton announced that the British government is planning 25 gigawatts of offshore wind power capacity, adding to the 8 GW already in development. A grand plan that could, in theory anyway, power all of Britain's 25 million homes by as early as 2020. Wind seems to be blowing in the minds of the politically correct and those on the environmentalist bandwagon. But the cost is going to be huge, no companies will plunge into it without massive government subsidies, and should the turbines actually be built, power reliability will almost certainly take a nosedive. ...The bottom line is that the debate about renewables, and investment in them, is as much about ideology and political belief as about economics and environmental issues. When the real cost of wind power as a major player in our future power needs is assessed, the answer won't be found just "blowin' in the wind."

Legal action by the Saugeen Ojibwa could derail or delay major energy projects in Bruce County, Saugeen lawyer Arthur Pape warned an Ontario Energy Board hearing this week. Before anyone starts building new power lines to the Bruce nuclear power development site, Saugeen representatives want the province to have separate talks with affected First Nations governments, Pape said. ...Without adequate consultation, Pape said his clients could well pursue court action to disallow results of the power system plan review. Such legal action "might very well result in the plan being neither economically prudent nor cost-effective," he told the board. Proposed nuclear and wind power developments raise "environmental risks" crucial to First Nations people, Pape argued. That federal action "undermined the credibility and the stability" of public safety protections, Pape said.

...Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri's pledge nearly two years ago to bring wind power to a state where there is just one operating wind turbine. His goal was to get 15% of the state's electrical power from wind by 2011 - which would require about 100 turbines. Several major challenges now stand in the way of the small state's big plans. Among them: No one has decided where to put a wind farm, it's not clear how the project will be paid for, and public opposition - a major wild card - is unknown, according to Carcieri's top energy adviser, Andrew Dzykewicz. ...No other state has built an offshore wind farm, forcing Rhode Island's government to invent the process nearly from scratch. One of the state's main environmental regulatory bodies, the Coastal Resources Management Council, has not even decided what it requires from prospective wind power developers.

On Capitol Hill, the Audubon Society is leading the fight to increase production of climate-friendly power. So why are Audubon enthusiasts battling a wind farm that could help meet that goal? For one thing, there are trout in nearby streams, which activists say are at risk from chemical and sediment runoff from construction of 30 turbines, each soaring about 400 feet -- taller than the Statue of Liberty. Then there are the bats and hawks, which might be puréed by the giant blades that would catch the wind gusting along the Allegheny Mountains of Western Pennsylvania. "They're enormous," says Tom Dick, a retired veterinarian who founded the local Audubon chapter. "When you start looking at this, it's like, 'hell, this is not right.'"

Business Secretary John Hutton says he wants to open up British seas to allow enough new turbines - up to 7,000 - to power all UK homes by the year 2020. He acknowledged "it is going to change our coastline", but said the issue of climate change was "not going away". The thrust of the idea was backed by Tory Alan Duncan: "We're an island nation. There's a lot of wind around." ...The other choice was, he said, whether it was "easier to have these developments offshore rather than onshore". Asked what would happen if there was no wind for a few days, Mr Hutton said that was why there had to be a mix of energy sources - including nuclear power - to cover for calmer weather periods.

Minnesotans soon can tell state officials what they think of a plan to add hundreds of miles of electric transmission lines across the state. A group of 11 utilities, led by Xcel Energy and including Otter Tail Power Co., has proposed building three high-voltage transmission lines in Minnesota, claiming they are needed to improve service and prepare for growing electricity demands in areas such as the Red River Valley. ...Red Wing attorney Carol Overland has tracked the CapX 2020 proposal and operates a Web site that attempts to debunk the utilities' claim about needed transmission expansion. Overland said a better alternative would be to add generation facilities close to where the electricity is needed. "We're dealing with this false justification of need," said Overland, who will challenge the utilities' claims at the upcoming meetings.

There has been some opposition to large-scale wind projects in areas like Yarmouth County, where residents living near wind farms have complained about noise. To address that and other concerns, the province is partnering with the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities on a call for proposals to do a $45,000 study to develop wind turbine bylaws and policies.

Wind energy projects headed for Champaign and Logan counties will get up to $3 million in grant awards to move forward with production, Gov. Ted Strickland announced Thursday. ...Diane McConnell, a Union Township resident and member of Union Neighbors United .. said the lack of information that affected residents have received is her biggest worry.

Opponents of a controversial wind farm planned near Wellington are going back to court, claiming new evidence could limit the hours the project is allowed to run. Makara Guardians have asked both the High Court and the Environment Court to consider hearing submissions about the noise expected to come from Meridian Energy's West Wind project near Makara. ... Makara Guardians lawyer Graham Taylor said the group was not appealing against the project in full, but wanted to bring new evidence before the court about conditions relating to wind noise.

"These facilities are disproportionate to the islands' energy needs, and the majority of turbines installed in the past no longer function anyway," charged Antonia Antonakis, head of the municipal council of Serifos island. Local authorities fear that since wind turbines are usually situated on isolated hills and mountain tops, new roads will have to be built through previously unspoilt countryside, Antonakis said. Though the project on Serifos would involve building 87 turbines, 150-feet high each, this would provide less than a tenth of the country's renewable energy. The Greek industrial group Mytilineos has put in a bid for the project, which is still under consideration by the government.

Projects are picking up the most speed in Ontario, where the provincial government has embraced wind energy as a symbol of its green friendliness, and municipalities are signing on with a fervour because the province's above-market prices mean they can reap cash in land sales and tax revenues. But as Canada experiences a rapid rise in these developments, there is a growing opposition to wind power as a clean energy alternative, with complaints that it is high-cost, energy-inefficient, causes noise pollution and even wreaks havoc on birds' migratory patterns. After raising many of these concerns with the Ontario Municipal Board, residents of Wolfe Island, Ont., celebrated a victory this week when plans for an 86-turbine megaproject by Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc. was modified to place the turbines farther away from residential areas and wetlands.

Shouldn't eco-friendly Townshippers want in on this kind of technology? "It's not the technology we're opposed to, and it's not because we have a 'not-in-my-backyard' mentality," said Fabien Poirier, a fourth-generation resident who restores old houses and furniture, has a head for statistics and history, and is a member of the 'No' committee. "It's just that we don't think these wind towers should ever be put up in an inhabited area, so close to where people live. They're totally out of proportion to everything around them." The residents fear a variety of ills documented from turbine use in other countries: the shadows of the blades at sunrise and sunset, creating a strobe effect that catches the eye and makes people nauseous; interference with analog TV reception, making channels hazy; blinking lights atop the towers that distract and annoy at night; falling house prices caused by the towers being so close; the constant noise of the rotating blades (generally under 40 decibels), likened to the uneven pitch of an overhead fan, the hum of a beehive or the sound of a school bus approaching from a distance; the effect on bird and bat migration; and disruption of drainage caused by a soil structure that gets degraded by the foundations of the towers, each one with a footprint that is wide and deep and hard: 600 cubic litres of poured concrete.

A recent report published by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has said large wind farms such as proposed here are not the way forward for New Zealand, the significant adverse impacts are avoidable by harnessing wind power using smaller clusters of small turbines servicing remote towns, and this will be better for the country. Unfortunately this report was published just after our hearing was completed.

Appalachian states lack strong and detailed guidelines to regulate the continued growth of wind power facilities along the Mid-Atlantic highlands, according to a new study by the National Academy of Sciences. A team of academy experts concluded that wind power can help offset the greenhouse emissions caused by coal and other fossil-fuel energy sources, but the projected growth of wind power in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania creates potential threats to bird and bat populations that are not fully understood, the academy study found. Windmill "farms" also can cause other environmental problems and create legitimate aesthetic concerns for local communities - ranging from damage to scenic vistas to noise and "shadow flicker," a strobe-like effect created by rotating turbines, the report found. "The United States is in the early stages of learning how to plan for and regulate wind-energy facilities," says the report, compiled by the National Academy's National Research Council. The report said the cumulative effects of continued growth in wind power are unclear, and that further study is needed.

Expansion of the nation’s electricity generation by wind turbines may be eco-friendly, but it’s not winning hearts and minds in local communities, says Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Morgan Williams. Dr William’s report – Wind Power, People and Place – released today, said tensions were being increased by the limited scope for most New Zealanders to be involved in wind power development.

Only a massive immediate investment in wind energy and the installation of thousands of wind turbines over the next decade will permit France to reach its target of further reducing carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report by a state agency.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese police opened fire on villagers protesting against the lack of compensation for land lost to a new wind farm in the southern province of Guangdong, local officials and residents said on Wednesday.