The announcement ended a long-running dispute between backers of renewable energy and environmentalists ...The acrimony even triggered a nasty public squabble between Robert Kennedy Jr., a senior adviser at VantagePoint Venture Partners, which raised $160 million for BrightSource, and David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, which raised $40 million to buy the railroad lands and protect them from development.

Blue H USA, a Dutch-owned company that wants to anchor floating wind turbines some 20 miles southwest of Martha's Vineyard to harness offshore ocean winds, has applied for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps. The company wants to anchor a demonstration unit on the outer continental shelf approximately 23 miles off Squibnocket Point in Chilmark and about 32 miles southeast of Block Island, R.I. according to the Army Corps.

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.

During a conference that touted regional energy co-operation in Saint John, N.B., Tuesday, Graham said last year NB Power had surplus capacity on the transmission system. He said that access was put up for auction, an auction that all jurisdictions could bid on. But nobody from Prince Edward Island put in a bid. He said the province of Quebec purchased the excess capacity and now holds the rights to that transmission capacity, even though it is not using it.

Universities and businesses across Texas are expecting to spend millions in the next few years honing the blades, gearboxes and generators that make up turbines designed to harness power from the wind. The work, including studies slated for a new University of Houston research park as well as at a massive, 22-acre testing operation planned near Corpus Christi, all has a common goal: developing a new generation of efficient and reliable wind turbines.

PG&E project manager Alice Harron says she is "comfortable" with the solar power plant her utility wants to build on government land here along 4 miles of the Mother Road that connected Chicago and Los Angeles long before the interstate system. David Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy is not. Renewable energy projects such as this one ...sound good in theory, he says, but if they tear up pristine vistas, they're not "green."

Wind is the cheapest way for utilities to meet the renewable energy mandates that exist in 28 states and the national mandate that may soon come from Congress. But Mother Nature does not respond to mandates. Wind turbines spin the most at night when demand is low--and least on sultry afternoons when power is needed. If there is too much power on a grid, the operator drops the wholesale price to zero.

Environmental protection activists and proponents of the mining industry have collided over the U.S. Department of the Interior's recent decision to protect nearly one million acres of land near Grand Canyon National Park from new mining claims ...Popovich said the demand for clean, carbon-neutral energy sources cannot be met without disturbing the environment and regulations should seek to minimize and remediate disturbances without banning them altogether. "A single wind turbine requires 4.7 tons of copper," Popovich said. "A typical hybrid vehicle on the road today needs about 100 pounds of lithium and other rare Earth metals to make its battery.

Despite the hoopla over renewable energy - media chatter, government rebates, neighbors who "go green" - the nuts and bolts of installing more Earth-friendly power sources often get stuck. San Diego County, for example, is wrestling with how to handle applications for using residential wind turbines. Critics say the approval process is confusing and drawn-out enough to discourage investment in green power, just as companies are moving to fill the home-windmill niche.

President Obama, now summering on the Massachusetts island with his family, is still at least a year away from seeing turbines take root anywhere off the U.S. coast, even though his administration promised to make offshore wind a priority and developers are lining up to string wind farms up and down the Atlantic seaboard. His administration, delayed by controversy and red tape, has yet to grant a single permit for wind or solar development on public land, onshore or off.

Wind farms have been blamed for disrupting the lives of birds, bats and, most recently, the land-bound sage grouse. Now the weatherman? The massive spinning blades affixed to towers 200 feet high can appear on Doppler radar like a violent storm or even a tornado. The phenomenon has affected several National Weather Service radar sites in different parts the country, even leading to a false tornado alert near Dodge City, Kansas, in the heart of Tornado Alley.

Financial troubles for Entegrity Wind will increase because dozens of turbines sold by the P.E.I.-based company have to be checked for a possible manufacturing flaw, says the firm's CEO. Last week, a judge gave the company 45 days to come up with a plan for dealing with at least $9 million in debts. ...Company CEO Jim Heath told CBC News last week that a problem with the turbines will dig the company into deeper troubles.

As the debate swirls about the state's future energy needs, one thing has become clear: South Carolina is a lousy place to build a large wind farm. On land, that is. Three years ago, the Energy Office hired a consultant to map wind speeds across the state. Using existing weather data and sophisticated computer-modeling techniques, researchers estimated that wind speeds average less than 10 mph on state soil -- too low to efficiently turn today's huge wind turbines. But it's an entirely different story just off the Carolina coast.

The customers of a P.E.I. wind turbine manufacturer are worried about what financial trouble at the company will mean for them. ...The company avoided an effort by a creditor to be put in receivership earlier this week. Entegrity has sold turbines to wind operations in 70 locations across North America and around the world, and some of those customers are nervous.

The US wind industry, which has recently become the world's biggest, has suffered a sharp slowdown in growth this year and will miss development targets. Denise Bode, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association, said the industry had anticipated 10,000MW of new capacity this year but it is likely to build only about half that because of limited financing.

The New York Power Authority (NYPA), America's largest state-owned power organisation, is appealing to the private sector, including Britain's National Grid, to help it to generate electricity from one of its most prized assets - by turning a corner of the Great Lakes into a giant wind farm. ...The NYPA hopes that its Great Lakes Offshore Wind project, harnessing the winds blowing on the New York State waters of Lakes Erie and Ontario, will excite private sector interest worldwide.

SkyPower Corp, a Canadian developer of renewable energy projects owned by bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (LEHMQ.PK), said on Wednesday that it has filed for court protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. SkyPower said it was seeking to quickly sell its assets through a court-approved process and that several potential bidders have expressed interest in a deal.

Zoltek Cos. Inc. posted a loss in its fiscal third quarter as wind farm developers delay projects to see how they can cash in on the federal stimulus package. The company lost $1.4 million in the quarter ended June 30, compared with a profit of $2.3 million a year ago.