A recent Energy Department report said wind power could supply 20% of the country's energy needs by 2030. Community leaders in this blue-collar town of 11,000 think they might be able to top that by building an offshore wind farm that would supply all of their town's power. That would be a first. ...There are already more than 20 offshore wind farms producing electricity in Europe but, in this country, such proposals have sparked opposition from the Great Lakes states to Long Island. Opponents, including seafront homeowners, say such installations would threaten avian and aquatic life and ruin scenic vistas. With such environmental concerns pitted against the demand for clean energy, there is not a single offshore turbine anywhere in the United States. ...Building offshore would allow developers to produce electricity closer to big cities, particularly along the East Coast. The downside is that it would also boost construction costs by 30% or more. Erecting turbines within view of pricey coastal real estate also increases the odds of a backlash since a typical utility-grade unit includes a tower nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty and a rotor roughly as wide as a football field is long.

Stocks of companies that generate electricity from solar or wind power -- or make the equipment to do so -- soared during the last three years. But the global credit crunch, higher prices for raw materials like polysilicon used in solar panels, and cuts in government subsidies to consumers, such as in Germany last month, have made investors much warier. High oil prices, analysts say, can't compensate for all that. "Some months ago, it was still true that a rising tide lifts all the boats," said Thomas Germann, an analyst at Zuercher Kantonalbank. "But investors are now scrutinizing what's going on at the company level, because cost efficiency has become more important." ..."The easy money has been made," said Jean Ryan, who oversees three funds with about €2 billion in assets at KBC Asset Management International Ltd., a unit of Belgium-based KBC Group NV.

Sapec SA, the third-largest supplier of crop-protection products on the Iberian Peninsula, plans to raise cash for construction of U.S. wind farms by selling other alternative-energy projects after they are completed this year. ...The wind farm projects in the U.S. are facing delays amid uncertainty about the extension of renewable-energy tax credits and problems getting the turbines from Spain, according to Velge. Naturener, which had planned to install 210 megawatts of capacity in Montana this year, will complete only 107 megawatts of the Glacier Wind project this year. The first project in Canada will not be completed until 2010, rather than in 2009.

Texas billionaire and wind energy developer Boone Pickens said at a hearing in Washington Tuesday that the U.S. is exporting about $700 billion a year to feed its oil addiction, as he joined the call from energy leaders to use nuclear, natural gas, coal, wind, biofuels and solar to wean the country off imported crude. According to the Department of Energy, an investment of $60 billion in new transmission capacity is needed between now and 2030 to enable wind power to supply 20% of U.S. electricity.

Open just 19 months, Suzlon's first U.S. plant has taken off like a gale-force wind. Employment has swelled from 275 to 500. Production jumped from one blade a day to nearly three as businesses and farmers search for alternatives to coal power. Suzlon now is the fifth-largest turbine maker in the world, with about 8 percent of the U.S. market. ...Suzlon's rise in Minnesota "has been slow-fast" success, said Dan Juhl, Corey's father and the man responsible for bringing Suzlon to Minnesota. "Suzlon is a pretty typical turbine manufacturer these days. All of them are having problems, especially now that they are going with these great big machines. They are putting something the size of a football field up into the wind. The load on these is just off the charts." The Juhl family installed Suzlon's 1.25 megawatt wind turbines in 2004. Suzlon's Pipestone plant now makes 2.1 megawatt machines.

Babcock & Brown Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Phil Green is under increasing pressure to sell European wind farms to stave off a possible debt review, triggered by a share collapse this week. ...A successful sale could trigger a rebound in Babcock's shares, which trade at less than three times earnings after falling 83 percent this year, said ABN Amro Holdings NV analyst John Heagerty. Failure may increase the risk of banks demanding early repayment on A$2.8 billion of debt.

With 66 turbines and plans for another 18, Ontario's $200 million Erie Shores Wind Farm could be a sign of things to come for the Great Lakes region. To the layman, they all look the same: towering, commercial-scale turbines jutting into the sky, each about the height of a 25-story building. Nobody knows how alternative energy will alter Canada or the U.S.'s landscape during the next 20 years.

Royal Dutch Shell believes the future of wind power is in North America, where it is redoubling its efforts after pulling out of the large-scale London Array wind farm project in the UK. "The European theatre has been built out,'' Dick Williams, president of Shell Wind Energy, told the FT. The growing importance of wind power originally drew Shell into what was set to be the world's biggest offshore wind farm, the 1 gigawattLondon Array, that put the UK in line to be the world leader in building offshore wind farms. But on May 2 Shell said it was selling its stake in the project to turn attention to North America. Mr Williams draws attention to the large tracts of available land in unpopulated areas in the US and Canada that enable cheaper on-shore expansion, against the more expensive option of developing offshore projects in Europe.

Noble Environmental Power's planned IPO brings good news and bad news for investors interested in the alternative energy sector. The good news is that traders will finally have a pure-play stock in the growing market for wind power. Stocks such as Trinity Industries(TRN) and Otter Tail(OTTR) have shown recent momentum due in large part to their respective operations in the sector. The bad news is that, because the market is still nascent, investing in the IPO means putting money in a company with no revenue on its income statement to date -- and nearly $1 billion in debt. ...But the prospectus does sketch a profile of a company that may be heading for the public markets a little too early: four years of operations, high debt and no revenue. Normally, those are the kinds of signs that cause prudent investors to think twice. And they do mean that Noble Environmental will be bringing with it more risk than most IPO candidates have -- especially with the possibility that federal tax incentives for wind companies might not be renewed this year.

The chief executive officer of Suzlon Energy Ltd., the world's fifth-largest wind-turbine producer by sales, has resigned amid growing questions about the Indian company's fast-paced growth. Andre Horbach, a former senior executive for General Electric Co. in Europe, stepped down on Friday, 16 months after taking the job. ...Suzlon has benefited from a global shortfall of turbines from more-established producers like GE and Denmark's Vestas AS, the world's largest producer in terms of sales. ...But Suzlon is also facing headwinds. Blades on turbines that it has sold to power producers in the U.S. have begun cracking. The company says only 45 blades have been affected, but it plans to spend $30 million on repairs and to strengthen almost all the blades it has sold in the U.S. Suzlon's efforts to upgrade its technology have also run into problems.

The U.S. Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service designated five areas on the Outer Continental Shelf for testing new energy technologies related to wind power, wave energy and ocean currents. The five areas are located off the coasts of California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey. The agency said in a statement that it is proposing limited, temporary leases in these areas for data collection and technology testing. Commercial energy production will not be allowed yet.

US consumption of renewable energy fell 1% in 2007 to 6,830 trillion Btu from 2006, largely because of a sharp drop in hydro-electric generation last year, the US Energy Information Administration said. In releasing preliminary numbers on Wednesday, the agency said the decline in renewable consumption came as both total and non-renewable energy consumption increased by 2%. ...Consumption of all other renewable resources increased in 2007. The largest gainers were biomass, which rose 7% to 2.615 quads last year from 3.374 quads in 2006, and wind, which jumped 14% to 0.319 quads from 0.264 quads in 2006, the agency said. Major increases in consumption of biomass to produce and use biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) were almost entirely responsible for the increase in biomass in 2007, EIA said. The report said that just over half of renewable energy consumption in 2007 occurred in the electric power sector,

Zoltek, a supplier of carbon fibers used in wind turbine blades and other equipment, said in a Tuesday 8-K filing that on May 13, it received a letter from the SEC indicating the regulator's staff was conducting "a non-public, fact-finding investigation" and requested that the company hold on to certain records and to information and documents related to matters disclosed in a May 5 8-K. In that filing, Zoltek revealed that two fund transfers of $175,000 in September 2007 and $75,000 in January 2008 from a subsidiary of the company "were not properly authorized or reported in the Registrant's financial records." The company said in its Tuesday 8-K that its audit committee was investigating the errors.

At 265 feet tall, four gleaming white wind turbines tower over the tiny farm town of Rock Port, Missouri, like a landing of alien intruders. But despite their imposing presence and the stark contrast with the rolling pastures and corn fields, the turbines have received a warm welcome here. ...Last year, a record 3,100 turbines were installed across 34 U.S. states and another 2,000 turbines are now under construction from California to Massachusetts. In all, there are about more than 25,000 U.S. turbines in operation, an investment of $15 billion. On May 12, the U.S. Energy Department said wind power could provide 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030, or 304 gigawatts, up from the current 16.8 gigawatts. Achieving that will require that wind turbine installations rise to almost 7,000 a year by 2017, the department said.

The Connecticut wind power company operates 282 megawatts of electrical generating capacity. Essex, Conn.-based wind power company Noble Environmental Power has filed plans to raise up to $375 million in an initial public offering. The company, which operates 282 megawatts of electrical generating capacity, joins a growing list of cleantech firms that are braving the rough market waters.

But, like most weather reports, the outlook for large windmill projects is anything but predictable, plagued as they are by noise complaints, endangered species and fickle commercial backers. In the United Kingdom, a giant wind farm planned for the Thames River estuary now appears to be in jeopardy after Dutch oil giant Shell announced it would pull out of the project. ...The company has said it will continue to pursue wind power projects in the United States. Yet U.S. wind power projects have run into some snags of their own.

Here's another sign that wind energy is coming of age: Wind law is now piling up in court precedents and is being taught at law school. ...Hamilton's wind law course covers the gamut of the legal nitty-gritty about wind energy, including easements and leases, property issues, land-use regulations, utility regulation, metering and financing, and state and federal tax, energy and environmental policies. Hamilton's class is one of three in the United States. The University of Texas at Austin has a wind law class and so does the University of Oregon in Eugene. "With turbine farms going up all over Iowa, it's the next logical step,"

A new breed of prospector is scouring Montana's hills, but wind is the resource it seeks. Before these prospectors harvest that gold in the sky, however, they've got to secure the real key to the mother lode - permission from landowners to build towering wind turbines the size of a Boeing 747. Across the state, from Circle in the east to Ennis in the west, the race is on to lock up the best sites by courting landowners and sealing deals for exclusive rights to explore and develop wind power. Hundreds of thousands of acres already are under lease to foreign and U.S. wind developers.

Where conscience and capitalism intersect, a market has grown quickly in recent years for individuals to pay money for an eco-friendly project to counter the damage modern living does to the atmosphere. ...Critics of the system claim that, at worst, all this offsetting can be a distraction from the challenge: using less fossil fuel in the first place. "Is it like the Titanic, just rearranging the deck chairs?" said Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who keeps the blog climateprogress.org. People won't cut back on flying as long as they can assuage a guilty conscience, that logic goes. And then there will be little hope of meeting targets such as cutting carbon emissions by 80 percent over the next 40 years. Even some supporters of offsets contend the unregulated voluntary market leaves customers with too little certainty about whether their offset purchase will do any good. A key part of the debate revolves around "additionality": whether an environmental project would have happened without the new money created by the offset purchase.