The wind blows a lot on the Bering Sea island, averaging 22 mph - just about right for producing wind power energy for St. Paul residents being crushed by the rising price of diesel fuel. While the island has three wind turbines, the island's 450 residents have no wind power. That's because the city and TDX Corp., the Native corporation that wants to bring wind power to residents through subsidiary TDX Power, Inc., have been going round and round about the issue. The problem is that the city wants to retain ownership of the electric power plant and have TDX sell it wind-generated power. TDX prefers to buy and operate the utility.

The two companies, working under the name Wind Energy Alaska, are seeking a state permit to put up two 198-foot towers west of Bald Mountain Ridge. Each would hold three or four wind velocity meters, attached at various heights, along with wind vanes and a temperature sensor. A solar-powered transmitter would periodically send data from the towers to a Washington state office. Jager said the study would take a year, longer if winds during the study time are considered abnormal. If wind data is promising, Wind Energy will analyze whether developing a wind farm is profitable. ...Wind Energy Alaska plans to gather wind data this year on the Kenai Peninsula and in northern Mat-Su as well as at Hatcher Pass. It is still gathering data on Anchorage's Fire Island, Jager said.

Kodiak Electric Association's Pillar Mountain wind generation project is now $1 million closer to a $14 million renewable energy project to offset diesel fuel consumption in Kodiak. Gov. Sarah Palin recently signed a bill in the 2008 state capital budget to assist KEA in offsetting a portion of the costs for the Pillar Mountain wind project. Sen. Gary Stevens and Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux helped push the appropriation through as part of a program to lower costs and reduce emissions in Kodiak.

The change in leadership at the state's biggest electric company late last month has caused the utility to take a more critical look at a wind farm proposed for Anchorage's Fire Island. The new majority on Chugach Electric Association's board campaigned on a cost-savings platform. It is raising questions about whether the wind farm makes financial sense. The project is being planned by Cook Inlet Region Inc. for land the Native corporation owns on the windy island. Under its previous leadership, Chugach united with three other Railbelt utilities to explore buying power from the wind farm if CIRI builds it. Last week, its operations committee voted 3-1 to withdraw Chugach's support.

You've probably flown over Fire Island dozens of times. It is about three miles southwest of Anchorage, just off the runway at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Now big changes for the island may be blowing in the wind. Native corporation Cook Inlet Region Inc. announced today it wants to start a wind farm.

JUNEAU -- Lawmakers proposing to use $24 million to place windmills on Anchorage's Fire Island are facing opposition from at least one electric company that says such state money would be better spent for more pressing needs.

The Kodiak Electric Association wind generation project on Pillar Mountain, so far does not put birds in harm’s way.

Leaders in a blustery Western Alaska city have stopped studying wind energy as a power source. The problem? Too much of it. Unalaska, a city of 4,300, seems tailor-made for the alternative energy. It’s situated in the Aleutian Islands, called the Birthplace of Winds. Powerful tempests brew there when frigid Siberian air collides with much warmer air above Pacific waters, producing major storms striking the West Coast, meteorologists say.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- In the quest for oil-free power, a handful of small companies are staking claims on the boundless energy of the rising and ebbing sea. The technology that would draw energy from ocean tides to keep light bulbs and laptops aglow is largely untested, but several newly minted companies are reserving tracts of water from Alaska's Cook Inlet to Manhattan's East River in the belief that such sites could become profitable sources of electricity.

Kodiak Electric Association’s wind generation project is taking steps toward a naturally driven resource that could move the power company away from the high cost of diesel fuel. Results of a 10-month study on wind data were analyzed in August and showed KEA is in a favorable position to use wind atop Pillar Mountain. Darron Scott, KEA chief executive officer, said Wednesday the power company’s wind rank is a 7 on a scale of 1 to 8. “That gives us a good wind regime to work with,” Scott said.

A Chugach Electric idea to put giant, electricity-producing windmills on Fire Island is giving its neighbor, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, a case of bad vibes. Radar experts recently found that electromagnetic waves from the proposed 33-windmill project would be so strong they would warp the signal of the airport's main air traffic control radar. On top of that, the sheer size of the windmills, whose blade tips could reach 400 feet in the air, would also physically block the signal of another key radar already on Fire Island.

ALASKA STANCE: Stevens, Young are fighting a Massachusetts project.

WASHINGTON - Inside the Beltway, he's made his name as a champion for tapping oil resources in his own state - and for telling the federal government to butt out.