If wind farm developers looked only at the bottom line, Illinois likely would be one of the last places they'd try to erect hundreds of wind harnessing turbines. Property tax rates are among the highest in the region. The permitting process varies from county to county, and roughly half of the petitions put forth so far have resulted in litigation with opposition groups. The strength and steadiness of the breeze is good but better elsewhere. ..."There's a tremendous wind resource, a tremendous renewable energy standard. . . . It's kind of a perfect storm right now," Link said. "(Illinois) truly is going to be a leading state when it comes to wind energy capacity."

Westar is seeking the rate approval to recover $282 million for ownership of turbines at two proposed wind farms and for costs in purchasing energy from a third farm. The 300 megawatts of electricity would come from the Central Plains Wind Farm in Wichita County; Meridian Way Wind Farm in Cloud County and Flat Ridge Wind Farm in Barber County. ...Westar expects energy demand to continue growing among customers and while new wind energy can put off purchase of new "baseload" or constant power sources, for now, the utility expects it will need to build a new power plant between 2016 and 2018. ...Moore told commissioners Westar would walk away from the wind projects if they weren't allowed to earn at least a small profit from them.

...global investment bank Lehman Brothers agreed to advise and finance the $700m Cape Wind project, the US’s first offshore wind farm located near Nantucket Island and a landmark cause for many environmentalists. This March, Goldman Sachs sold its investment – redubbed Horizon Wind Energy – to Portugal’s largest utility, EDP, for more than $2.1bn, making a profit of $900m. But Lehman Brothers’ project, despite early state-level approvals, has been stuck in bureaucratic purgatory from which it is unlikely to emerge soon. The problem: Nantucket’s millionaire residents oppose the wind farm, which they claim would ruin their ocean views. The contrast between the outcome of the Zilkha investment and the Cape Wind project illustrates the unpredictability of the clean technology sector. “There is no doubt in my mind that renewable energy is like other tech start-ups, where some will succeed and many will not.”

Paterson said although alternative energies would undoubtedly become very important in years to come, there was "little clarity" in the sector at the moment. Many fundamental questions remain about how to best capture and transmit energy from natural sources, making it difficult to assess the potential effectiveness of new innovations. However, Paterson said the biggest barrier was the fact that the sector is heavily regulated and influenced by government. Much of the current interest in alternative energies is being driven by strong support from Europe, the UK and the Scottish Government. "But from an investor's point of view, we have got to think about the long term," Paterson said. "What happens if the government changes, or priorities shift?"

The Ottawa City Council and Invenergy, developer of the Grand Ridge wind farm, have split the difference concerning the fee the city will receive as administrator of the enterprise zone being expanded for Invenergy's estimated $5.2 million benefit. ...The benefit to Invenergy would be an estimated $7.5 million exemption to state sales tax on project construction materials. The new deal gives the city an estimated minimum of $375,000 more than proposed in an agreement placed on file last Wednesday. Originally, Ottawa stood to benefit from a fee equivalent of up to 20 percent of the sales tax savings. But that was with the understanding the Ottawa Fire Department was to be the "first responder" to calls at wind farm construction sites -- which would mean ones in other fire agency jurisdictions. Under the revised agreement, Ottawa's share was to drop to 10 percent with the other 10 percent to be divided up among fire protection agencies in the expanded enterprise zone area.

WPSC joins several other utilities that have already sought rate hikes to recover costs for anticipated increases in fuel prices. They include Wisconsin Power and Light, We Energies, WI Gas and Northern States Power. The greatest increase is being sought by We Energies, which is asking for electric rate hikes of about 7.5 percent for 2008 and 7.5 percent for 2009. The company says the money is needed to help pay for its investments in the Blue Sky Green Field wind project in eastern Wisconsin, significant air quality control equipment at the company's existing power plants, new electric generating units at Port Washington and Oak Creek, and construction of transmission upgrades and additions by the American Transmission Co.

No action was taken by Gray County commissioners Thursday morning to establish a reinvestment zone concerning a proposed wind farm by T. Boone Pickens, a Roberts County rancher and Dallas businessman. ...A reinvestment zone, once called an enterprise zone, is an area in which businesses could apply for potential tax abatements if they establish a facility within the zone ...The wind farm is expected to consist of approximately 1,400 generators spread over 300,000 acres in areas of Gray, Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler counties, with most of the units in Gray and Roberts counties.

It's round two for green power in Farmington today, with utility customers attending another City Council work session to protest a recommended $40 renewable energy fee. "A bunch of us are going to turn up again," said Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico staff organizer for the San Juan Citizen's Alliance. "I think the city needs to do the right thing and shuck the recommended policy." ..."All I can do is present the information and they will make a decision." "Customers who choose to utilize renewable energy should do so because they believe it is the right' thing to do, but should also understand that these options are more expensive than traditional carbon-based resources," the report reads.

When LIPA ...first proposed the offshore wind project in 2003, costs were estimated at $200 million. The company said it would have little to no impact on electricity rates. That was the last published cost estimate until fall 2006, when under a Freedom of Information Law request from Newsday, the power authority released the original, winning bid from FPL Energy of Florida: $356 million. The price increases didn't stop there. ..."Long Islanders shouldn't believe for one minute that any major form of renewable energy is going to be cheaper than traditional resources produced by oil or natural gas," Kessel wrote.

Lingering hard feelings over negotiations for wind-farm-tax agreements last month may lead Franklin County to create a planning department. ... Thursday, when IDA Executive Director Brad Jackson came before the County Legislature's Economic Planning and Development Committee, he was criticized for not doing enough to look out for the county's interest at the negotiating table. Saranac Lake Democrat Timothy Burpoe said legislators thought Jackson was supposed to be the county's representative in the room. Burpoe said higher megawatt figures could have been obtained with a tougher stance against Noble and the towns. But because a deadline was imposed to reach the deal quickly, Burpoe said, he and some other legislators felt pressure to settle for a deal even though the county ended up with the smallest share.

Bluewater Wind will build 150 energy-producing turbines off the coast of Rehoboth Beach by about 2014 at an estimated cost of $1.6 billion, according to a statement released this afternoon by Bluewater. ...Bluewater spokesman Jim Lanard put it more bluntly: "Our biggest concern is that Delmarva has a secret black box they may use to try to blow up the process." Delmarva would pay 10.59 cents per kilowatt hour for the wind energy, McGonigle wrote. That's 1.05 cents higher than Bluewater's original bid.

Friday is the deadline for Delmarva Power to release details of agreements with three power companies to provide stable-priced electricity for the next 25 years. Homeowners, environmentalists and state officials are awaiting data to see if the wind farm will offer a competitive price, as well as whether the wind farm will be big enough to make a sizable contribution to the state's electricity supply. ...

Reed said the economic benefits were not sufficient to make a compelling case for a municipal wind farm at this time, due in part to the uncertain availability of any federal incentives for municipally owned wind projects.

Our report described how generators are favouring on-shore wind farms because they are much cheaper to develop than technology such as offshore wind or tidal power. Therefore, the Government is considering changing its policy to offer more ROCs per MWh for more expensive technology. This could reduce the amount of money companies can make from wind farms. However, this will not change until 2009, and any wind farm that is already established by that point will not be affected. For that reason, there is a suspicion that firms are racing to acquire sites before the cut-off point - and the huge amount of money they can make from ROCs mean they can afford to offer large payments to landowners who are willing to allow turbines to be erected.

Landowners in the North-East are being offered staggering sums of money to site wind farms on their property, The Journal can reveal today. A contract seen by The Journal for a site in the region could see the landowner rake in more than £6m for agreeing to the turbines. It demonstrates the huge temptation for landowners, who are offered a guaranteed income way in excess of what they could gain from any other source, for no outlay of their own. And it also illustrates the prices power companies are willing to pay due to the massive incomes they themselves can generate through a Government subsidy system for wind power.

The government’s plan to increase the nation’s reliance on green power could expand a black hole that already sucks nearly two billion kroner out of consumers’ pockets annually. In order to promote construction of wind turbines, the government has agreed to purchase the electricity they generate at a minimum price. The guaranteed prices have had the desired effect: some 5300 wind turbines dot the Danish countryside, producing 18.5 percent of all electricity generated. The practice has its downside, however. The guaranteed prices for wind power results in an overproduction that cost the state an excess DKK 21.6 billion between 2001 and 2005, according to figures from the National Audit Agency. Due to the uncertainty of whether the wind will blow, Energinet.dk, the organisation responsible for ensuring that the country can meet its electricity demand, has to keep a reserve of conventionally produced electricity in case the wind dies down. The extra cost is typically passed on to consumers in the form of higher electric bills.

Sue Brander of Advocates of Stark and also a wind farm opponent, sees several other economic disadvantages. Brander sees the wind farms as a federal tax scam. She said the federal policies were designed by Jeffry Skilling, the former Chief Financial Officer for Enron, who is now in jail. The 68-turbine project proposed for the Stark, Jordanville, Warren area would cost approximately $136 million. Under the current system, the owner of the project can deduct 64 percent of the investment in two years, which comes out to $96 million. Brander said that Congress needs to review these laws and change them because investment banks, such as Goldman Sachs, are buying them just for the tax write off. She also sees an economic disadvantage for real estate value. Brander said that although some developers and market analysts have said property prices would not go down, properties up for sale around wind farms see less interest than homes away from wind farms. “It is all supply and demand, and people are seeing losses in their real estate value,” said Brander.

Wind power turbines generate much bigger profits for Ontario's farmers than for Quebec's — typically two or three times bigger, an investigative report by CBC's French-language service has found.

Rural Columbia River Gorge counties saw plenty of dollar signs when wind farm developers began erecting turbines in their breezy, rural backyards. The investments slapped tens of millions of dollars onto sagging tax rolls and promised to revive budgets for services such as schools, health care and economic development. But the anticipated windfall has suddenly lost some of its heft. A state-level change in the way the projects are valued has worked to pull down assessments, and, in turn, has wiped out hundreds of thousands of property tax dollars that county officials had hoped to pencil into future budgets. “This is very serious for our counties and our taxing districts,” Judge Laura Pryor of Gilliam County wrote in an e-mail newsletter to rural colleagues. “What we have all thought of as an industry of benefit, may not be of much benefit. They don’t provide any jobs and now they may not provide much revenue either!”

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.