Offshore wind turbines may not provide substantial benefits to the state's environment and could come with some risks, a report by released today states.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Dave Groberg, project developer for Invenergy Wind LLC told 60 members of Mountain Communities for Responsible Energy (MCRE) Tuesday at Williamsburg’s community center. "While many people find wind turbines graceful and attractive, others disagree." He was referring to the 131 wind turbines his Chicago-based company hopes to erect on the mountain ridges of northwestern Greenbrier County.

November 30, 2005, 8:39 PM EST TRENTON, N.J. -- A panel appointed to determine if New Jersey should build energy-generating wind turbines off the coast has released an interim report that _ while it draws no conclusions _ has been criticized by some environmentalists as giving short shrift to wind energy benefits.

A Science Unit report on the controversy over a proposed wind farm to be built off the coast of Massachusetts in the middle of Nantucket Sound.

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.

November 29, 2005 Newark, New Jersey [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] New Jersey already has the most generous solar incentives in the nation, and if new policies are adopted to the state's broad requirements, solar and all renewable energy technologies will stand to gain greatly over the next decade and beyond.

Wind, solar, and geothermal power in use or planned at several Unitarian Universalist churches.

NORTHEAST KINGDOM -- Kingdom residents will have another opportunity to comment on a proposed regional plan that supports wind power as a renewable energy source but leaves decisions up to individual towns. A second hearing on the draft plan is Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Lyndon Institute cafeteria. The deadline for written comment is also Dec. 6.

SHEFFIELD – Residents here are gearing up for a public showdown to determine how registered voters feel about the proposed Sheffield Wind Farm.

Many Berkshire towns have earned thousands of dollars for a public renewable energy project through the Massachusetts Clean Energy ChoiceSM program. The Clean Energy Choice program has $1.25 million to distribute in matching funds to towns when residents and small businesses choose to “green up” their electricity.

In June, Austin-based Green Mountain Energy Company – self-described as "one of the nation's largest retail providers of cleaner electricity products," generated from sources such as wind, solar, water, biomass, and natural gas – announced the crosstown relocation of its headquarters from aquifer-sensitive west Austin to an award-winning green office tower downtown, in anticipation of growth and expansion. By the time the move was complete, however, the energy provider had discontinued servicing about 480,000 customers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, laid off 15% of its workforce, and found itself facing suit in federal court. Green Mountain blames regulatory and market obstacles for its woes, but its critics cite an over-reliance on natural gas and a lack of investment in the very clean energy sources the company has made its trademark.

A group of Northeast states has postponed the announcement of a landmark agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants after Governor Mitt Romney raised objections to the pact late last week, two government sources familiar with the agreement said yesterday.

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.

Representative Mark Udall, D-CO, has criticized the mixed signals being generated by Congress on the importance it places on renewable energy research during a debate on the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, HR 2419.

That’s the stunning thing about nuclear power: tiny quantities of raw material can do so much.

During the 1990s, capacity margins in the United States declined almost one third, falling from 21 percent in 1991 to less than 15 percent in 2001. In some regions, margins shrunk to less than 10 percent. Concerns grew over electricity reliability and possible upward pressures on electricity prices. However, as new gas-fired power plants began to come on line in the late 1990s, the developing electricity generation capacity surplus began to raise concerns. The U.S. capacity margin growth of 2002 should have eased upward pressures on electricity prices. However, electricity prices surged in many areas, such as New England, where surplus electricity capacity has developed. This suggests that the standard definition of capacity margin may not be appropriate in the context of current market realities.