Despite a short-term spike in the cost of wind power, data from a recent Emerging Energy Research study shows wind energy is nearly cost-competitive. The Comparative Costs of Energy report focuses on the European market but can be applied to the U.S. market as well, said William Ambrose, president of EER. Much of the study was based on global trends in the industry, he said.

CHATHAM --- Is wind power an important element in weaning the country away from its reliance on fossil fuels, or a boondoggle that will do nothing more than line the pockets of investors and power companies? And where does the proposed Cape Wind project fit into all of this?

Washington, DC [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Once again, representatives of the U.S. wind power industry are finding themselves fighting a battle against legislative attacks from politicians hoping to stymie new development of projects. Laws that would have been damaging to an already struggling offshore wind power business in the U.S. almost made it into the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and now, two new provisions in two pending bills in Congress are reigniting the fight.

Democrats said the legislation could produce as much as $15 billion in revenue. Most of that money would pay to promote renewable fuels such as solar and wind power, alternative fuels including ethanol and biodiesel and incentives for conservation.

Washington, DC [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] With energy independence and renewable energy development a legislative priority for Congressional leaders, the introduction of another renewable energy legislative proposal made its way to the Senate floor last week.

The green energy sector has a lot riding on 2009. Policymakers from Washington to Beijing have pledged billions of dollars in "cleantech" investment to jump-start the depressed global economy and create millions of new low-carbon jobs. ...As with the solar industry, wind power has been hit by a sudden slowdown in private sector investment as credit has dried up and the price of oil has fallen from its mid-2008 high. The industry hopes public spending will help fill the gap until the global economy gets back on its feet.

The Obama administration wants to rebuild the national electric grid that delivers power to everyone's toasters and televisions. One reason is that the grid can't handle all the new solar and wind power the president wants to build to create a greener energy economy. Here's the problem: Solar and wind power are intermittent. Sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it's not, and it's the same for wind. But the grid needs constant and reliable sources of power.

Wind turbines provide little of the grid's electricity today, so if a turbine farm or two are becalmed the grid will barely notice. But if wind provided, for example, 20 percent of the nation's electricity, some grid operators would need a quick way to shed some load, or at least defer it, to cope with calm conditions. With solar power there is an even greater potential need for flexibility: clouds could knock out hundreds of megawatts of supply in a few seconds. Some utilities learned 30 years ago how to shed load without blacking out whole neighborhoods.

PITTSBURGH Wind power may be flying high, but the young industry fears its growth may be clipped if federal rulemakers and Congress continue to set up new regulatory hurdles.....in January, Congress mandated a study of the effects of proposed wind turbines on military operations, including aircraft radar, triggering special scrutiny by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense .

Researchers seeking to make the ocean's salty brine drinkable using wind power will spend the next year using the town of Hull as a case study to help other water-needy, windswept coastal areas filter freshwater from the sea.

With one wind turbine already spinning, another to be installed in January, and a third offshore turbine being considered, Hull is an ideal laboratory for modeling a desalination plant that runs off a combination of renewable energy and the electric grid, according to James Manwell, director of the Renewable Energy Research Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Washington - U.S. clean energy initiatives at the state level have stimulated debate on the need for carbon dioxide emission standards and are testing policy solutions aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, experts say. Two major regional initiatives in the United States' Northeast and West that target specific reductions of greenhouse gas emissions have elevated national discussions about climate change, particularly within the federal government, these experts say. Some major companies, faced with a possibility of having to deal with a patchwork of state and local regulations, have called on the federal government to develop reasonable nationwide emission standards.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., introduced the legislation last week and held a hearing Wednesday for administration officials to raise their objections to it. The bill addresses numerous topics on which the panel and its subcommittees have held hearings, including energy corridors, Minerals Management Service audits and carbon capture. "The bill being heard today seeks to reinstate public accountability and integrity in the Interior Department's energy programs, to advance alternative energy strategies, begin to grapple with the pressing need to initiate carbon sequestration and tackle the potential effects of climate change on our fish and wildlife resources," Rahall said.

House lawmakers are expected to debate this week a hotly contested effort to require electric utilities to produce more power from renewable sources such as wind and biomass. The proposal is strongly opposed by the utility industry's biggest trade group, the Edison Electric Institute, and by Atlanta-based Southern Co., a major coal burner that has made defeating the measure a priority. In a letter sent to lawmakers last week, Thomas Kuhn, the trade group's president, said the industry is "deeply concerned" by the proposal, arguing that it would discriminate against utilities in places without lots of wind or other renewable resources.

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today told the American Enterprise Institute that he "challenges ... the idea that deliberately raising energy prices will somehow be good for job growth and the economy" ...instead of a clean energy policy or even a clean, renewable energy policy, what we have in practice is a national windmill policy."

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander warned today that utility bills could jump dramatically in the state and its mountains might be threatened if a proposal to require every state to generate a certain amount of wind power is included in an energy bill being considered by the Senate.

A panel chaired by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus on Tuesday approved an energy-tax package designed to boost alternative energy production and conservation - partially at the expense of big oil-and-gas producers. "This is a significant victory in our efforts to become more energy independent," said Baucus, D-Mont., who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. "We have more to do to address climate change, lower gas prices at the pump and wean America off of foreign sources of energy." The Finance Committee approved the $28.5 billion, 10-year tax package, which is expected to become part of a larger energy bill before the U.S. Senate this week. The package includes tax credits to encourage production of wind power, solar power, gas-electric hybrid cars, biodiesel fuel and "cellulosic" ethanol, which is produced from agricultural waste products.

Depending on whom you talk to, emerging plans to build 765,000 volt transmission lines to bring power from the "Saudi Arabia of wind" in the Dakotas to population centers in the Midwest and East Coast are either vital to the nation or a boondoggle waiting to happen. "This state has vast resources it can't use without building new power lines," says Mr. Nelson, gesturing at lines on a grid map at the East River Electric Power Cooperative in Madison, where he is manager.

Washington, D.C. - Most Americans probably don't realize it, but the United States got its first dose of new nuclear power in more than a decade in May. That's when the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government-owned corporation, resurrected a North Alabama reactor that had been shut down for safety reasons 22 years ago. Consider it a sign of things to come. With electricity demand expected to grow by about 30% within the next 15 years and speculation that the government will at some point put a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions, the nation is poised for a "nuclear renaissance."

MILAN, Italy, May. 11 (UPI) -- In order to continue its high rate of growth, the wind industry has many opponents to convert and obstacles to overcome. From siting to operation, wind project developers face a barrage of challenges. First, though regulations vary, you can't put a wind turbine within a certain distance of an area of national, historic or natural value. Also, unless residents are offered a share of the project, locals sometimes oppose them, citing aesthetic concerns.

In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthome dated Thursday, the congressman [Rahall D-WV] requests that the federal Minerals Management Service delay issuing its final environmental impact statement "until the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) has provided the public 60 days to review and comment on a third-party review of the radar study submitted by the Cape Wind project developers."