Italian finance police have arrested two prominent businessmen - including one with ties to a former investor in the Cape Wind project in Nantucket - in the wind energy sector on charges of fraud, reports the Financial Times. Arrested were Oreste Vigorito, head of the IVPC energy company and president of Italy's National Association of Wind Energy, and Vito Nicastri, a Sicilian business associate, according to the article. According to the European Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, Oreste Vigorito has ties to Brian Caffyn, a former investor in the Cape Wind project, which has been criticized as a poor investment for taxpayers, reports Dakota Voice.

A cold front swept across northern China's Inner Mongolia region in early November, forcing a wind energy farm at Xilin Gol to curtail operations - even as a brisk breeze whistled through idle turbine blades. "When that much wind is moving through, the generators can't make electricity," explained Ma Zhanxiang, vice president of the Inner Mongolia Electric Power Industry Association (EPIA). "Money just blows by." ...Inner Mongolia's situation is a clear example. Its installed capacity - 50 gigawatts -- is the country's largest, but the excess at wind farms has reached a crisis level. EPIA counts some 10 gigawatts in the region, including 3.49 gigawatts of wind power, as excess installed capacity.

Italian finance police, mounting an operation code named "Gone with the wind", yesterday said they had arrested two of the country's most prominent businessmen in the wind energy sector. Police said the charges related to fraud involved in obtaining public subsidies to construct wind farms. They are also investigating the sale of wind farms to foreign companies.

News that $450 million in federal stimulus money might go toward installing Chinese-made wind turbines in Texas prompted criticism on Thursday, with Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, calling on the Obama administration to deny federal financing. According to partners in the deal, the proposed 600-megawatt wind farm, announced late last week, would be built on 36,000 acres in West Texas using 240 wind turbines manufactured by A-Power Energy Generation Systems of Shenyang, China.

Wind turbine blades rip loose near Esbjerg and southwestern Sweden, one landing on a hiking path A malfunction on a Vestas wind turbine in the town of Falkenberg on Sweden's southwest coast could have resulted in tragedy, as one of the structure's large blades flew off and landed on a track used by hikers.

The total cost of the project, which was brokered in part by the U.S. Renewable Energy Group, an American private equity company, was estimated at $1.5 billion. ...The group's calculations last week put the number of American jobs at a little more than 300 - most of them temporary construction jobs, along with about 30 permanent positions once the wind farm is operating. Mr. McGarr told The Wall Street Journal that more than 2,000 Chinese jobs would be created by the deal. That, along with the fact that the project was hoping to secure 30 percent, or $450 million, of its financing from U.S. stimulus funds, was enough to send tempers flaring.

A Sino-US consortium yesterday announced plans for a US$1.5 billion, 600MW wind farm in Texas, with China supplying all the turbines and most of the funding. The 36,000-acre wind farm ...is a joint venture between state-backed Chinese firm Shenyang Power Group, US wind farm developer Cielo Wind Power and private equity firm US Renewable Energy Group. Most of the funding for the project will come from Chinese banks, with loan guarantees and grants provided by the US federal government's economic stimulus package.

The State Government will investigate the health concerns of Victorians who live near wind farms. Last month, the Democratic Labor Party Member for Western Victorian, Peter Kavanagh, asked the Government to investigate whether workers near wind farms faced health hazards. Some landholders near the Waubra wind farm, west of Ballarat, say a low frequency hum from the turbines is making them sick.

Shares in Spain's Gamesa (GAM.MC) drop 5.8 percent on uncertainty after its chairman resigned late on Thursday, with concerns over regulation for the Spanish renewable energy sector also weighing on sentiment.

Today, the WHO Regional Office for Europe launches its Night noise guidelines for Europe. (1) The book provides ground-breaking evidence on how exposure to night noise can damage people's health, and recommends guideline levels to protect health. The new limit is an annual average night exposure not exceeding 40 decibels (dB), corresponding to the sound from a quiet street in a residential area. Sleepers that are exposed to higher levels over the year can suffer mild health effects, such as sleep disturbance and insomnia. Long-term average exposure to levels above 55 dB, similar to the noise from a busy street, can trigger elevated blood pressure and heart attacks. One in five Europeans is regularly exposed to such noise levels.

The European Commission is expected to introduce a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that directs the largest slices of €50 billion available for research and development to solar power and capturing and burying emissions from coal plants. ...Christian Kjaer, the chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association, ...questioned the decision to give nuclear power and carbon-capture technologies significantly more than wind, which would receive €6 billion.

"Given the outrageous manipulation orchestrated by those who, since 2004, are seeking to site eight turbines, I decided to officially launch this hunger strike September 29th at noon in solidarity with citizens." In these terms, Tuesday, Fabienne Chovet publicly explained her decision to begin a hunger strike.

Between 500 and 1,000 protesters gathered last weekend at Mont-Saint-Michel in France to demonstrate against plans to build a wind farm along the Normandy coast. They say it would be a useless eyesore disfiguring the bay area. The European Platform Against Windfarms (EPAW), along with four other environmental groups, organized the event "to denounce the massacre of our national and cultural heritage by the wind farm scourge." Though protestors hailed from France, Britain, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, the event received very little media coverage.

China wants renewable energy like wind to meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020 ...But experts say the country's transmission network currently can't absorb the rate of growth in renewable-energy output. Last year, as much as 30% of wind-power capacity wasn't connected to the grid. As a result, more coal is being burned in existing plants, and new thermal capacity is being built to cover this shortfall in renewable energy.

China, the world's third-largest economy, has made green energy a priority. The country has doubled its capacity for wind-generated power every year for the past four years, and President Hu Jintao pledged last week to turn to more sources of renewable energy in coming years. However, many wind farms have been built far from populated areas or transmission grids, making their output largely useless for now. The China Electricity Council, a national industry group, says 28% of the country's wind power equipment sat idle at the end of 2008.

BP is expanding its wind power electricity generation capacity in the United States but is shedding an Indian unit, which has been sold to Green Infra Limited of India. BP said Green Infra Limited purchased its subsidiary, BP Energy India Private Limited, for a total cash-free, debt-free enterprise value of about $95 million.

Lobbyist pressure will not weigh on a U.N. panel's decision whether to award carbon finance worth about 100 million euros ($144 million) to Chinese wind power projects, said the chair of the panel on Tuesday. ...The issue has caused long-running tension between the panel and project developers and brokers about the speed of approvals in the $6.5 billion global carbon offset market. Under the U.N.-led Kyoto Protocol's clean development mechanism, rich countries can buy rights to pollute by funding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations.

A new study indicates that winds turbines could be contributing to the local extinction of an endangered vulture in southern Spain. ...The results suggest that if the number of wind turbines stays the same as it is today, the population will go extinct 10 years sooner than if there were no wind farms.

Could wind farms hasten the local extinction of an endangered vulture in southern Spain?

The Phuket Provincial Energy Office plans to build windmills in the Nakkerd Hills near the ‘Big Buddha' image, a seminar on alternative energy was told on Thursday. Phuket Energy Office chief Jirasuk Tummawetch made the announcement during the seminar, held at the Royal Paradise Hotel in Patong.