Maine's quest to become a leader in developing an alternative energy industry has plenty of support in Augusta and Orono, but along the shoreline people are more wary. While some see the development of offshore wind energy as a powerful engine for economic growth in Maine, many in the state's beleaguered lobster industry fear that wind farms will be just one more item on a growing list of obstacles to fishing in the Gulf of Maine. Last month, the state's Ocean Energy Task Force tentatively identified four sites along the Maine coast as potential locations for testing offshore wind generators.

With more than a third of the major wind-energy projects in Massachusetts stalled by lawsuits or permit appeals, the Patrick administration has proposed a landmark bill that would streamline the state’s appeals process and make it possible to win approval of such projects much more quickly. Massachusetts now generates less than 1 percent of the nation’s wind energy, about 9 megawatts ...Without a change in the permitting process the state will not meet Governor Deval Patrick’s goal of producing 2,000 megawatts of wind power, enough for 800,000 homes, by 2020.

To municipal wind power advocates, net metering is the Holy Grail. ...Net metering provisions virtually double what municipalities are currently paid for the power they generate through renewable energy. It also allowed the towns to get credits at the wholesale rate for their power ...But some Cape municipal and county officials are worried that wind turbines that are still in the planning stages will not get the benefits of net metering because of a cap the state Legislature imposed on the total amount of power that could be generated under the program.

The Ontario government's multi-billion-dollar wind turbine deal with South Korean industrial giant Samsung Group is in jeopardy after a power play in Premier Dalton McGuinty's cabinet, the Toronto Star has learned. Sources say rival ministers opposed to Deputy Premier George Smitherman's pet scheme, which they fear will mean "billions" of dollars in subsidies to Samsung, have convinced McGuinty to stall the landmark deal first reported in the Star on Sept. 27.

Radical changes to the planning system to help build wind farms, nuclear power stations and new roads are likely to cause a storm of protest across Britain, Andrew Gilligan reports. ..."They are going to industrialise the countryside," says Nick Wadham, a local protester against the scheme. Caroline Evans, another resident, says the sound can travel more than six miles. She had an email from a woman in a nearby village who said she had not slept for three nights after the turbines were installed.

Local wind farm opponents vowed yesterday to keep pushing for independent studies into the effects wind turbines have on people. Ontario legislators rejected Bruce- Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Murdoch's call to halt industrial wind farm development until the province's top doctor can assure the government turbines don't harm people living nearby.

The delegation, which includes representatives of every Island board of selectmen, the Dukes County Commission, Martha's Vineyard Commission and the Wampanoag tribe, has been trying without success for almost three weeks to get a meeting with the governor. Instead, the governor's office offered them time with the chief architect of the plan, the Secretary of the Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles.

The rows of white turbines spinning over wheat fields and ridgelines in eastern Oregon are ample evidence that renewable energy from wind is real and growing. ...But wind developers are just getting started. And thousands of miles of new power lines carried by skyscraper-sized steel towers will need to be laid across deserts, farms and forests as more wind farms rise in farther-flung corners of Oregon and the West. It won't be cheap, or without controversy.

In what could dramatically alter transmission and wind energy development in the Upper Midwest, a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ruling last week shifts virtually the entire responsibility of paying for transmission network upgrades to wind developers in the footprint of the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (Midwest ISO). The FERC ruling requires that Midwest ISO wind generators pay 90% of the cost of transmission upgrades for network upgrades for projects rated 345 kV and higher.

Converting ocean winds into electricity could be a boon for the state but many obstacles need to be resolved before it can become a reality. That was the message former Gov. Angus King delivered Wednesday to more than 200 people attending the second Maine Coastal Waters Conference at Point Lookout. King said the state will need to factor the needs of shipping, fisheries and environmental groups when siting wind generators offshore. In addition, the technology to harness that energy has yet to be developed, he said.

Having considered seven sites along Maine's coast for offshore wind demonstration projects, state officials on Tuesday narrowed the list to four possible locations where researchers might explore the potential for wind power facilities. The University of Maine, which earlier this month received an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for wind energy research, and commercial developers will be able to test deep-water wind turbines.

Two utility-scale wind projects on hold in Berkshire County, with a combined 45 megawatts of capacity, would expand wind generated electricity in the state by about 500 percent and power the equivalent of 15,000 homes, according to local and state officials. But both are tied up in litigation filed by local property owners, and one of the projects has been delayed for more than five years. A bill pending in the Legislature might cut the time needed for permitting, eliminating much of the litigation-generated delays.

State energy and environmental officials assured Islanders that their voices will be heard and their concerns considered as the state's draft Ocean Plan nears finalization on December 31. "The secretary's perspective is that we're not going to ram our projects down the throats of a place that doesn't want them," said Deerin Babb-Brott, an assistant secretary to Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles.

In the wake of last week's National Grid filing with the state Public Utilities Commission, Deepwater Wind executives are hoping for more time at the bargaining table. Last Thursday National Grid recommended the PUC to turn down a power purchase agreement (PPA) proposed by Deepwater for an eight-turbine wind farm within three miles of Block Island. According to National Grid, Deepwater was asking 30.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for its electricity, when the average cost for wholesale electricity is about 9 cents. It called the proposal "commercially unreasonable."

Gov. David Paterson has ambitious renewable energy goals for New York state -- most of which he is trying to meet by encouraging the construction of large wind turbines. But wind farm advocates say that a new regulation adopted less than two weeks ago by the state Public Service Commission may severely curtail future construction of large-scale commercial wind farms in upstate New York. The rule requires that developers of new renewable energy projects in New York study whether there is enough transmission line capacity to handle the additional power their projects will create.

Plans by the Crown Estate to treble its revenues from offshore wind parks have angered energy companies, who say that the move could jeopardise the viability of important new projects and undermine government hopes to boost renewable energy in Britain. The Crown Estate, which owns the seabed out to 12 nautical miles, is already set for a £500 million windfall from offshore wind power production by charging rent based on each unit of electricity produced.

Ontario's natural resources ministry has been so overwhelmed with applications to develop offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes that it has stopped accepting them - at least until March. Minister Donna Cansfield, speaking at a conference in Toronto, said more than 100 applications have been received representing more than 500 projects on the Ontario side of the lakes. "The window for applications has been temporarily closed," she said.

There are much cheaper ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than subsidizing renewable energies. CO2 abatement costs of PV are estimated to be as high as $1,050 per ton, while those of wind power are estimated at $80 per ton. By contrast, the current price of emissions certificates on the European emissions trading scheme is only 13.4 (Euro) per ton. ...Moreover, the prevailing coexistence of the EEG and emissions trading under the European Trading Scheme (ETS) means that the increased use of renewable energy technologies generally attains no additional emission reductions beyond those achieved by ETS alone.

Ian Bowles, Secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said Tuesday that the state is prepared to listen to the concerns Islanders have about provisions of the Oceans Act. He said that while Islanders have focused on the designation of areas west of the Vineyard for wind farm development, the state is actively exploring the potential for wind farm development in federal waters well south of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.