Pump jacks and wind turbines were at odds in an energy bill the House approved this week, creating a quandary for North Texas where both could share the horizon. ...But he thinks it's unfair to penalize one sector of the energy industry to benefit another, Michael Frohlich, spokesman for the Lubbock Republican, said. Increasing taxes on five of the biggest oil companies will drive up energy prices for consumers, Frohlich said. "The Democrats are shooting at big oil companies, but they're hitting Americans in their wallets," Frohlich said.

As plans for Godzilla-sized wind farms wait for regulators to approve transmission lines to serve them, much smaller farms are starting to spin in the Panhandle. The 10 megawatt farms have been overshadowed by projects like last year's start up, the 161 megawatt Wildorado Wind Ranch, but they still make their presence known. "Each one of those things are a straw in the basket on the camel's back," said Stephen Beuning, Xcel's director of market operations. "We're accommodating them, but they could cause reliability problems if the wind is blowing hard and we have enough power already." High Plains Wind Power is building one of the latest wind farms to go up in the region. It's a 10 megawatt project in Carson County northeast of Pantex.

If Texas' wealth over the last century came from oil, wind farm developers are banking that a chunk of the state's future prosperity will come from an above-ground resource. ..."With wind law and the wind industry, what's happening legally is about the same place the oil industry was 100 years ago," said Ernest Smith, a University of Texas law professor who will teach a course in wind law this semester. "It's virtually unregulated. People realize there's great value to it, but there's no precedents in case law and very little statutory help." But as windmills go in the ground, will regulation catch up? Controversies over wind farms, especially those along the coast, have headed to the courthouse.

Austin Energy has relied almost entirely on wind to propel its march toward the city's renewable power goal. But to ensure reliability and affordability, Austin Energy will need to diversify its portfolio beyond wind to reach its goal of getting one-third of its electricity from renewables by 2020, said Michael McCluskey, the utility's deputy general manager. ...The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the electric grid for most of the state, has determined that only 8.7 percent of the state's installed wind capacity can be relied on in periods of peak demand. So to ensure that the lights - and air conditioners - stay on during hot summer afternoons, utilities must have backup conventional power sources, such as natural gas, that can be turned on quickly, said Bill Bojorquez, ERCOT vice president of system planning.

A massive wind farm project in Gray County is on hold today because County Commissioners decided more information is needed. The wind farm is proposed by T. Boone Pickens, who would like Northern Gray County to be designated as a reinvestment zone so they can apply for a tax abatement. ..."So many people here that have built Gray County and they've paid their taxes, year, after year, after year. I just feel like Mr. Pickens and his wind farm machine, I think he ought to pay his fair share of taxes if he's going to come in here." said Kathleene Greene of Pampa.

A provision in the national energy bill that has been stalled by Texas' two senators would probably boost the market for one of the state's fastest-growing sources of power: wind. ...Although wind farms remain expensive to build, they benefit from a federal tax incentive and have become attractive to both traditional utilities and green-power start-ups. But a national standard is opposed by many large utilities and several members of the House from Texas, including Joe Barton of Ennis. ...Skeptics who are against the renewable standard said that wind power doesn't need any more incentives. The technology has taken off so quickly that there is a two-year waiting list to buy wind turbines, said Sen. Pete Domenici, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Howard County commissioners approved a trio of reinvestment zones necessary to grant tax abatements Monday morning, moving forward with negotiations with several wind energy developers that could lead to an estimated 400 to 500 new turbines being erected in the county. Commissioners met with Terry Wegman, executive director for Moore Development, who is serving as a liaison between the wind energy developers and local taxing entities for the purpose of establishing reinvestment zones, and ultimately, negotiating tax abatements for several proposed projects. The court approved reinvestment zones A, B and C, following a public hearing that drew comments from only a single property owner. ..."Even the smaller developments - the smallest one is 36 megawatts - will be putting up quite a few turbines. I think we're looking at between 400 and 500 turbines at this point, but that's nothing more than a rough estimate."

State regulators are making Panhandle wind developers get federal permission before pumping energy downstate, and some fear their projects could be limited. ..."It's up to (the Federal Electric Regulation Commission) to determine how much it wants to keep and how much it wants to relinquish," said Terry Hadley, PUC spokesman. "That's because that area is outside (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas) and inside the Southwest Power Pool which is under FERC jurisdiction because it is part of an interstate grid."

The Coastal Habitat Alliance - a coalition of eleven Texas-based and national organizations working to preserve the Texas Gulf Coast - today expressed satisfaction that the Public Utility Commission (PUC) of Texas has agreed to hear their appeal regarding the group's intervenor status in the AEP 345 kV transmission line case to be held on October 17 in Austin.

Shell WindEnergy and Luminant have a partnership agreement to develop a 3,000-megawatt wind farm in Briscoe County. The final order is to include the guidelines for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to study where to build transmission lines to get the power from wind farms to population centers and who should do the building, as suggested by PUC Chairman Paul Hudson. The problem is there may be a cap of 1,000 megawatts per project.

The wind in the offshore area "is not super-strong, but it's steady," Jim Suydam, a spokesman with the land office, said in an interview. "The wind blows hardest in the daytime," when power is most expensive, unlike West Texas, another area with wind farms that has the strongest wind at night, he said.

The Texas General Land Office is offering four tracts off the state's coast in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to bidders for the Oct. 2 lease sale. ... The General Land Office explained, "These tracts may be subject to existing oil and gas leases and other encumbrances. The windpower lessee must coordinate with other lessees and permitees to ensure that rights granted under such leases and permits are not unreasonably affected."

In a bid to block two large wind energy projects on the South Texas coast, an alliance of environmental groups and landowners is taking aim at the high-voltage transmission line required for the project. The wind farms represent a $1 billion investment in a remote corner of the Kenedy Ranch.

During the proceedings leading up to Friday's decision, developers expressed interest in constructing 24,511 megawatts of wind generation, primarily in West Texas. A megawatt of electricity can power about 250 average homes. "Although the three of us have exercised our best judgement on hundreds of contested cases in our time together, this one does have the feel of the extraordinary," Hudson told his fellow commissioners. "It is, frankly, an astonishing testament to the wind resources available in our state."

The $628 million contract that the panel quietly approved devotes a third of the city's energy purchases to wind-generated sources. White hopes the idea will give the city more stability in its roughly $150 million annual electricity budget, after costs rose recently with natural gas prices. The deal would make Houston a leader among governments nationwide for using wind sources to get power.

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Multiple reports and studies, especially those published in the last year, suggest the United States, specifically the East Coast, has great potential for offshore wind. The politicized debate over whether to develop wind power offshore has dragged on since the late 1990s, when the first project was proposed in Cape Cod, Mass., off the Nantucket Sound. Since then there have been several other proposals, none of which has been completely approved.

The region long known for sheep and goats, cattle feedyards, cotton fields and oil derricks is evolving into a hub of alternative energy, with plans for ethanol plants and wind farms, and possible nuclear reactors and coal-powered plants. "These rural communities have to find something they can have in their area that provides quality of life and will generate the economic activity that allows communities to thrive and grow," said Greg Clary, a Texas Cooperative Extension economist who works with the Texas Center for Rural Entrepreneurship.

LUBBOCK - Texas figures to lead the nation in renewable energy production by 2025 and stands to gain $22.8 billion in annual economic activity and 173,400 jobs overall, according to a study backed by a group that supports alternative sources of power.

There is yet another plan to get wind power to the people who need it. In testimony filed with the Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday, that group's director of transmission oversight backtracked on a previous plan he proposed. T. Brian Almon said the Panhandle Loop plan is still a bad idea, but sending power to the Dallas area via Oklahoma by the X Plan is not such a good idea either. "I believe that there exist at this time uncertainties related to how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would react to a very large export from Texas and then import into Texas of power," he said.

Meanwhile, as the nation considers options for future energy development, environmental questions have emerged as important considerations, the NRC report states. Proponents point out that wind-energy facilities emit no atmospheric pollutants and are driven by a renewable source, addressing multiple environmental concerns such as air quality and climate change. However, the NRC report also points out that the expansion of such facilities can carry adverse environmental impacts.