A year after the collapse of the equity financing market for large wind farms, state leaders and private developers are eyeing community-scale projects as an opportunity to grow the number of turbines in the state. But while communities may be good candidates for wind projects - with a strong, steady demand for electricity and the ability to raise taxes as collateral - just who will ultimately back these developments is still an unknown.

The O'Malley administration's desire to build offshore wind turbines as part of its renewable energy program is running into an unlikely source of resistance: the military. The fear is that turbines placed in the Atlantic Ocean could disrupt flight and weapon test ranges ..."When you start to place turbines out in the Atlantic Ocean, they will create an artificial image on the radar, and we might not be able to see aircraft because we think the aircraft is really the turbine spinning around out there," said Todd Morgan, president of the Southern Maryland Navy Alliance.

Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday they would put off debate on a big climate-change bill until spring, in a sign of weakening political will to tackle a long-term environmental issue at a time of high unemployment and economic uncertainty. Legislation on health care, overhauling financial markets and job creation will be considered before the Senate takes up a measure to cap emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to climate change, Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday.

Two companies that encountered political anger for their plans to use Chinese-built turbines on a wind farm in West Texas have announced plans to build a new turbine factory - in the United States. The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, an investment firm, and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese turbine maker, said in a statement on Tuesday that they had signed an agreement to build "a new production and assembly plant in the United States that will supply highly advanced wind energy turbines to renewable energy projects throughout North and South America."

A major selling point for the green jobs movement has been the near guarantee that renewable energy and green tech sector jobs will be tied to U.S. soil -- wind farm technicians and solar panel installers in China or India can't service turbines in Iowa and roofs in California. The resulting theology of the green energy movement is that investments in alternative energy will yield millions of new U.S. jobs that cannot be shipped overseas. But Sen. Charles Schumer's, D-N.Y., recent irritation over a proposed Texas wind project eligible to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funding has shown just how erroneous this thinking is.

Caseyville police arrested businessman and windmill-builder Larry Wetzel on Monday afternoon after a judge signed a warrant for his failing to appear in court on charges he forged a building permit. A jury found Wetzel guilty of four counts of forgery in September. Prosecutors said he presented a faked building permit to police and a court clerk in an effort to build a wind turbine and power building in Caseyville.

The solicitations have been flooding people's mailboxes lately: pay a bit more on your electricity bill for 100 percent clean wind power. Or, the fliers say, buy "green power certificates" to offset your global warming emissions. Close to a million electricity customers have signed up for such payments voluntarily, and the amount of electricity sold in this way has nearly tripled since 2005, amid rising concern about climate change and energy security. But the participants are in a distinct minority, with a sign-up rate of only about 2 percent in programs run by utilities.

The rush to America of foreign wind-turbine manufacturers shows that the Obama administration's plan for stimulating the creation of green-energy jobs is going in an odd direction.

This time, the county was prepared, but the developer was not ready to advance the Minonk Wind Farm project for a vote by the Woodford County Board. At the request of David Radin, project manager for developer Gamesa Energy, the County Board on Tuesday tabled a vote on a road agreement as well as a special-use permit for the proposed 100-turbine project.

A recommendation that a proposed 333-turbine wind farm should be given a special use permit is on its way to the McLean County Board. The McLean County Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously to recommend Horizon Wind Energy LLC's plan for Black Prairie Wind Farm, which would dot 3,500 acres north of Illinois 9 east of Bloomington-Normal. The County Board likely will not take up the issue until its January meeting.

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.

Where's the best place for a wind turbine in Orland Park? What are the advantages of a geothermal system? Should the village add solar power to some of its buildings? These are some of the questions sustainability consultant Teresa Fourcher will help village officials answer. The village is expected to use up to $10,000 in grant money from its $200,000 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant to pay Fourcher. Village manager Paul Grimes said most municipal staffs don't know a "hill of beans" about renewable energy so some help is needed.

The Livingston County Board at its meeting Thursday night approved amending the Streator Enterprise Zone Agreement, which had been in effect since the 1980s, so that several school districts in the county can benefit from the property involved in the Iberdrola wind farm project. ...County Board attorney Tom Blakeman explained that the county will abate the portion of property taxes involved with the wind towers. He said this would allow the schools to receive general state aid and then funds from Iberdrola.

The Massachusetts native who helped found controversial wind-energy developers Cape Wind and First Wind expressed surprise late last week at news that his one-time partner in a separate wind-energy company in Italy has been arrested and charged with fraud. "I read about it in the papers, and I was very surprised," Brian Caffyn said from Hong Kong, where he is now building wind-energy farms in China and the Philipines.

The Altamont is the world's oldest wind farm with some 5,000 power-generating turbines covering 50 square miles on the Alameda County border. While generating good green power for the state, it has a bad reputation for killing birds. The wind turbines on the gusty Altamont Pass were installed after the energy crisis in the 1970s. Today, the world's oldest wind farm powers an average of 100,000 homes with clean green energy. But environmentalists say it comes at a steep price.

Stephenson County Board member Jeff Mikkelsen said he will introduce a proposal to make wind farms a permitted use within the zoning ordinance to eliminate the need for a special use permit. Such a zoning change, he said, would eliminate the need to hold lengthy public hearings on future wind farm projects, making Stephenson County a more attractive prospect for wind energy companies. Mikkelsen, who serves as chairman of the County Planning and Development Committee, said he may ask his committee to consider this proposal in the near future.

The latest effort by a local computer business to go green has some residents in a nearby subdivision seeing red. Other World Computing's new wind turbine, 131 feet tall not counting its three 63-foot-long blades, towers over the open space and farmland that surround it just southeast of Woodstock. But some residents of the Savannah Grove subdivision 1,600 feet to the west say it towers over them, as well. The refurbished turbine went up over the course of an October weekend to many residents' surprise, homeowner Ron Cyscon said.

While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started. The Globe's finding is based on the federal government's just-released accounts of stimulus spending at the end of October. ...But in interviews with recipients, the Globe found that several openly acknowledged creating far fewer jobs than they have been credited for.

An ordinance to protect local infrastructure during the construction of massive wind mills used for generating electricity was tabled again at the Nov. 4 Edgar County Board meeting. The board's decision to forestall action was expected as the Wind Energy Conversion System Ordinance was first brought to the board for adoption on Oct. 7 but was tabled at that time because of questions raised during the public hearing.

When the Pilgrims arrived in America, it was the Wampanoag who greeted them peacefully so the newcomers could escape religious persecution. Now the tribe is having to fight for their own religious freedoms. The Wampanoag, also known as "The People of the First Light", have delayed the construction of America's first offshore wind farm, reports Associated Press. The Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag practice sacred religious rituals which they say require an unblocked view of the horizon, in particular, the sunrise.