Project partner Rankin Construction, which has also spent half-a-million dollars on the five- turbine Wainfleet project, was told last week in a letter from the power authority that the long-planned wind farm didn't make the grade. "I'm very, very disappointed. I'm at a complete loss," said company president Tom Rankin. "We've been working on this plan for eight years, but we can't go ahead without a contract."

The downside? As Astle points out, wind can't really offer us a true capacity rating. Sure, we can say we're building a 100-megawatt wind farm, but that figure is assuming the turbines spin at optimal speed 24 hours a day or on request. Let's take Ontario during the month of July. Last Thursday, for example, the output of the province's three operational wind farms, which at full output can produce 207 megawatts, only generated between 4 and 42 megawatts depending on the hour.

OSLO, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Wind power could generate almost 30 percent of the world's electricity by 2030 and is growing faster than any other clean energy source, a wind business group and environmental lobby Greenpeace said on Wednesday.

The Ontario Municipal Board is holding a public pre-hearing in Saugeen Shores today for the Canadian Auto Workers' proposed wind turbine. Town Clerk Linda White says the CAW wants to put a wind turbine on their property with a height that exceeds what the municipality's zoning by-law allows. She says the CAW wants the proposed wind turbine to be 75 metres high with 25 metre-long blades therefore the overall height would be 1-hundred metres.

It was a packed house at the Pontypool Community Centre Thursday (July 29) night -- a little too packed. Not a half hour into the planned three-hour public meeting regarding two proposed wind turbine projects in Pontypool and Bethany, fire officials shut it down for violating fire codes for going over capacity.

The director of operations for Enbridge Ontario Wind Power LP is excited about a new wind farm that is clearing regulatory hurdles in Kincardine, four hours northwest of Toronto. The project near the Lake Huron shoreline will include 110 wind turbines and produce 189 megawatts (MW) of power. “We went to Ontario because it’s got wind,” says Dodd. “You get a fair amount of constant wind around large bodies of water and Ontario’s proximity to the Great Lakes makes for great potential. “Then there are the links to existing infrastructure,” he adds. “Northern Ontario also has a good wind resource, but you have to get as close as you can to existing infrastructure and that’s easier in southern Ontario.”

It's the latest in the NIMBY syndrome. The Halifax Regional Municipality wants to get the public's feedback on how far wind turbines must be located from homes, roadways and property lines. The first of nine public meetings was held Monday night at Brookside Junior High School in Prospect. ...Most people want a conservative approach to setting guidelines for allowing turbines near a residence.

All the judges did was decide "it was not up to them to determine the wisdom of (Energy Minister Brad Duguid) which is a far cry from determining the minister's actions to be wise," Laforet said. "The situation is not bleak," Hanna said.

The 30-member Dawn-Euphemia chapter of Wind Concerns want the Ontario government to halt the building of wind farms and commission an independent study of their impact on the health of people living near them, "so we can rest in peace that these things are being done right," said co-chairperson Stewart Lewis.

Manitoba Hydro spokesman Glenn Schneider said the St. Joseph contract has not been finalized yet, but would be for 300 megawatts of wind power, or three times the size of the St. Leon wind farm south of St. Claude. It is estimated the St. Joseph project will have about 200 wind turbines. ...He expects the process to take a couple of months as the contract details are being worked out. Schneider said the project for St. Joseph, located south of Winnipeg, met the criteria the government was looking for: to have access to the land the company is proposing; have some provable data on the wind quality; have access and proximity to some of the transmission substations, and indicate a price-range for the project.

With just one week remaining for people to comment on a proposed 30-megawatt wind turbine park at Digby Neck, some worried local residents have gotten together to scrutinize the proponent's environmental assessment application. Scotian Windfields Inc. has partnered with SkyPower Corp. of Ontario to create and operate Digby Wind Park. A year ago the partnership revealed that it plans to erect 20 turbines in an area 40 kilometres by five kilometres in Digby Neck.

Nova Scotia’s bracing physical winds are the best on the continent for making electricity. But the political winds here are a problem. In terms of public policy that allows eager renewable-energy entrepreneurs to do business, the Nova Scotia government is stuck in the doldrums. Wind developers have the investment and are confident they can line up willing retail customers. But the government can’t get its head around the idea of letting this market work.

Kourtoff wants to build a 750-megawatt offshore wind farm in these waters, about 15 kilometres off the shore of Prince Edward County. That works out to about 150 wind turbines, seen as specks from the shoreline. And there's potential to double that. Earlier this month, he announced the creation of Tai Wind, a consortium of North American offshore wind developers who hope, by combining their collective needs, to attract a turbine manufacturer to Ontario. Already, Germany's Multibrid is seriously considering the invitation and, sources say, has begun high-level discussions between its executives and Ontario government officials. ..."It should be borne in mind that there is currently no experience in Ontario with offshore wind resources, and it may be that additional information may become available over time that would justify further review of this issue," the power authority concluded in a recent amendment to its 20-year plan. Herein lies a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma. How can the province get a true sense of development costs without forging ahead on at least one project?

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister is eyeing the potential for wind power along Haiti's coastline as part of the effort to improve the earthquake ravaged country's capacity for power production. ...But experts say that wind energy ...is too expensive and unreliable as a short-term source of power to fuel reconstruction.

Projects are picking up the most speed in Ontario, where the provincial government has embraced wind energy as a symbol of its green friendliness, and municipalities are signing on with a fervour because the province's above-market prices mean they can reap cash in land sales and tax revenues. But as Canada experiences a rapid rise in these developments, there is a growing opposition to wind power as a clean energy alternative, with complaints that it is high-cost, energy-inefficient, causes noise pollution and even wreaks havoc on birds' migratory patterns. After raising many of these concerns with the Ontario Municipal Board, residents of Wolfe Island, Ont., celebrated a victory this week when plans for an 86-turbine megaproject by Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc. was modified to place the turbines farther away from residential areas and wetlands.

The case, brought by Ian Hanna, a resident of Prince Edward County, 200 kilometres east of Toronto, argues that regulations in Ontario's Green Energy Act, governing how far turbines must be from houses, are illegal. If the court agrees, new wind development could come to a standstill. The case will also be an opportunity to air the views of those who feel wind turbines are unhealthy.

A California utility’s plan to scoop green power from British Columbia and ship it south is attracting strong interest from a company with a huge wind-power resource on the central coast. Katabatic Power says it has about 3,000 megawatts of potential wind-power resources at a 40,000-hectare Banks Island property near Kitimat. That’s about twice the total amount of generating capacity that was accepted in BC Hydro’s 2006 call for power. The company — with offices in Richmond and San Francisco — wants to develop its power “as fast as we can” and believes it can help B.C. become self-sufficient in electricity and trade power into U.S. markets.

Canada’s wind power business could face a tough year in 2007, with increasing doubts about this green energy source promising to buffet the industry. While a record amount of wind power is likely to come on-stream next year, with close to a dozen projects across the country set to be commissioned, questions about the safety of the turbines and the reliability of the power they generate are blowing across the landscape....... The fight against wind development from residents who live near planned projects has taken on a life beyond the usual NIMBY (not in my backyard) complaints. Wind opponents are now using broad arguments about wind reliability to bolster their other concerns over noise, bird safety, vibration and destruction of natural vistas. That’s going to accelerate in 2007, said Tom Adams, executive director of Toronto energy watchdog Energy Probe. “The NIMBYs are going to be more capable [and better able] to analyze and bring serious arguments, rather than just aesthetic concerns, into the discussions.”

NORTH RIVER - A possible wind power farm on Nuttby Mountain has area residents weighing the positives and negatives of the proposal. More than 60 people attended an open house in North River last night to get more information. Atlantic Wind Power Corporation (AWPC), partnering with Cobequid Wind Power Inc., sent a proposal to Nova Scotia Power requesting permission for a wind farm on Nuttby Mountain, southwest of Earltown. If approved, between 15 to 22 wind turbines would be constructed in 2008 and completed in 2009 at a cost of between $50 to $100 million.

Trillium has been planning a wind farm of up to 6oo megawatts in the waters of Lake Ontario near Kingston ...It was halted in its tracks in February when the province put a moratorium on all off-shore wind projects, saying it needs to do further studies about possible health effects.