Usually an Ontario Municipal Board referral is made either by a proponent objecting to a delay in rezoning, or by groups of residents objecting to a municipal council's approval of a project. But there's a different kind of twist at Grand Valley. There, in East Luther Grand Valley Township, a small wind farm proponent has referred its objection to an Amaranth Township approval of two severances on the Amaranth side of the town line dividing the two municipalities. ...zoning for the wind farm was approved in ELGV two years ago. Now, late in the game, the nature of the severance indicates that the intention would be to turn them into residential lots. If so, residential structures could be too close to the turbines, There are agreed-to setbacks.

ST. CROIX - The territory's Water and Power Authority announced Monday that contract talks with wind-power producer Innoventor Technologies had failed, ending a process that WAPA and Innoventor had promised would bring affordable, renewable energy to the Virgin Islands.

New York Power Authority President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Kessel met recently with the Press-Republican Editorial Board to outline his agency's plan to "do the biggest energy project in the state since the St. Lawrence/Robert Moses power project 50 year ago." The authority would import up to 2,000 megawatts of power from multiple sources, including hydropower from Canada and renewable resources both here and in Canada.

Sixteen species flutter around B.C.'s urban and rural areas in the nighttime hours, but the Environment Ministry is particularly interested in identifying four species of brown bats. ...Bat populations face numerous threats, ranging from forestry and wind-power development-- bats are often found dead around wind turbines.

Lisa Michaud, whose family has launched a $1.5-million lawsuit, claiming negative health impacts have been caused by a wind farm near their Thamesville hobby farm, would welcome studies at her property. She said the health impacts spread to their small goat herd, noting the animals would stand out in all kinds of inclement weather, refusing to go into their shelter.

Toronto Hydro's wind farm may still be in the research stage, but it's already drawing fire. For now, the city-owned utility wants to set up a small device to measure wind speeds on the lake 2 kilometres off the bluffs. If winds are adequate, 60 turbines could eventually sprout 2 to 4 kilometres offshore, over an area stretching from Ajax almost to the Leslie St. Spit.

The Northwest Territories government plans to pick a community later this year where it would like to begin work on its ambitious wind strategy by 2009. "Wind is a great opportunity for us. We have lots of it," Premier Floyd Roland said. ...Mr. Edworthy was with a private company that helped set up a wind turbine in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, in 1987. "Doing anything in the Arctic is more expensive and challenging," he said, adding that trained staff is hard to find and equipment wears out a lot quicker because of the cold and harsh climate. "The Arctic is incredibly hard on machines. If something has a design life of 20 years, in the Arctic that would be two or three," he explained. He said when those costs and challenges, such as maintenance and atmospheric issues, began to pile up, the industry and federal government lost interest in the North and concentrated its efforts in provinces such as Alberta and Ontario.

With the turbines up and running, a local man is concerned about noise levels coming from a nearby wind farm. Quebec-based Boralex has a five-turbine operation close to the Mallard Line residence of Paul Kirktown. "We don't hear them all the time," he said. "(But) it's woke us up at night and kept us awake."

Despite the flaccid demand, wind generators were getting an average of 12 cents a kilowatt hour for their power, while conventional power producers subject to the wholesale market were getting 7.4 cents. Not only does wind sometimes produce when it's least needed - in hot summer weather it often fails to produce when it is needed.

Energy Minister Jack Keir's wind-energy strategy could be a boon for New Brunswick, but the economic benefits of a wind industry simply depend on good wind forecasting, says an expert from the University of New Brunswick. As a generator of electricity, you need to be able to predict 24 hours in advance (what the wind will do) - so the system operator can schedule where they will buy the energy to satisfy the demand by consumers," says Yves Gagnon, the K.C. Irving Chair in sustainable development. "With wind energy, because of (its) intermittency, the organization that owns a wind farm must be able to forecast "¦ There are financial penalties if they don't provide that power at the time they said they would provide it."

"The problem is, is that we actually have surplus electricity. We're giving away our electricity to our neighbours and at the same time we are going to be charging individual Ontarians for their own power at a higher rate than they had before." The turbo-charged subsidization of one sector can come at a cost to others, Miljan said, tying some of Europe's recent financial problems in part to "heavy" subsidization of green technology in certain countries.

Tench says with 5-thousand megawatts of potential, if every wind farm that could be built, actually is built, Ontario wind power could equal the output of all the nuclear reactors at Bruce Power. But Tench says the study does not break down where in the province the most wind potential is, adding some possible wind farms are not practical, being too far from existing power transmission lines.

Last week, the provincial government announced an open invitation to wind power in Manitoba — an invitation that comes before concrete plans to use the increased renewable energy.

"It sucks," says Elmes. "The noise is, at times, huge." Sometimes it sounds like a pulsing jet engine. At other times, it's a constant rumble, like an endless freight train passing. Neighbours tell her it's like living near an airport. "The range of noise is unbelievable, and it's all so completely different from what you're used to that you just stop whatever you're doing," Elmes says. "I used to love my neighbourhood. I don't anymore."

Landlord Bill Sioulas thought he'd be paying less for hydro after cutting his consumption by almost 20 per cent. ...Expecting big savings, Mr. Sioulas says he was shocked to open his hydro bill and find a skyrocketing provincial fee had eroded the payoff of his conservation efforts.

A strategy to subsidize the province's nascent green energy industry is starting to sting businesses and many households that find themselves paying the biggest markups on electricity pricing in the country. Even as electricity demand - and market prices - dropped last year with the global economic downturn, electricity bills have risen steadily on the back of generous contracts signed by the province's power planning agency.

"What we are trying to do is meet the regional's state's goals to provide a renewable energy source to New Hampshire and New England." But despite its worthy goals, the project has caused a furor in The North Country. ...Russ Johnson is a Columbia resident. "We the people of Northern New Hampshire don't want you. We don't want you defiling our landscape and our economy by forcing your way over our forests and mountains and homes and we will fight you every step of the way."

To those whose homes and businesses would lie in the shadow of 11-story electric transmission pylons, the $1.6 billion New York Regional Interconnection is a project of unimaginable size and complexity. But the proposed 190-mile-long power line is simply the latest and greatest endeavor of one of Toronto’s premier energy-project financiers. He is Robert McLeese, and in his home country’s clubby energy circles, his surname conjures images of competency and success.

Both animal and human health is suffering from stray voltage that can cause catastrophic problems in the barn. But nailing down the precise causes and where the responsibility lies has proved a long and difficult struggle Driven out of business as a result of a raft of health and behaviour problems suffered by their herd, beef producers Ross and Darlene Brindley are suing Hydro One Networks Inc. and Edmonton Power Corporation (EPCOR) for a hefty $5 million. They claim that stray voltage from EPCOR's wind turbines not only destroyed their herd, but has also had a severe impact on their own health as well. And they are not alone.

By the end of 2013, Ontario household power rates will be the second-highest in North America (after PEI), and they will continue to accelerate while they level off in most other jurisdictions. Even more alarming for Ontario's economic competitiveness, businesses and industrial customers will be hit by almost $12-billion in additional costs over the same period.