PASADENA - The City Council has authorized an agreement with a wind power-generating facility to be constructed in Utah, furthering its stated goal to be more environmentally conscious. The Milford Wind Corridor Phase I is a 200-megawatt generating facility to be constructed in Millard County, Utah. The corridor is just 60 miles from the coal-fired Intermountain Power Project in Delta, Utah, which the council decided not to extend contracts with in December 2006.

Highlighting the environmental pitfalls of harnessing "green" energy, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's push to import nonpolluting power to Los Angeles could require building power lines and transmission towers through a national forest, two desert wildlife preserves and a rustic hamlet used in countless westerns.

LOS ANGELES -- In a blustery stretch of desert two hours east of here, where many of the world's first power-producing windmills were built, a plan for more turbines has triggered a backlash that echoes a national debate over the merits of wind energy. A proposal to build 50 windmills next to Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument has aroused passions in a region already dotted with 3,000 windmills, with opponents charging the wind energy industry has neither delivered the promised power nor spared the environment. The industry, born in California, has projects in 40 states and $8 billion in investments over the last two years, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Supporters say wind power has come of age and will help slow global warming, while critics contend that it has delivered only a quarter of its promised energy, proved lethal to wildlife and, in the view of many residents, blighted the landscape.

The road to approval of a massive wind energy project will be long and laced with regulatory red tape. Construction is expected to begin in 2009 on the Alta Wind Energy Center between Tehachapi and Mojave. Completion is forecast for 2014. But first, Southern California Edison, which signed a 20 year contract to purchase the power, must receive approval to build new transmission lines, upgrade existing lines and add two substations to disperse the power to homes.

A plan to send renewable energy from the Imperial Valley to San Diego is being delayed. The Green Path project would link up with the proposed Sunrise Powerlink transmission line. The Imperial Irrigation District Board voted to temporarily stop contract negotiations over a plan to move renewable energy to San Diego and Los Angeles. San Diego Gas and Electric's proposed Sunrise Powerlink transmission line would tap into those sources to provide energy for more than 600,000 homes in San Diego. Kevin Kelley is with the Irrigation Board. He says the board wants to review an independent consultants report before they make any decisions. Kelley says the board will make a final decision next month on the Green Path projects. The Imperial Valley has geothermal, solar and wind sources that SDG&E and other utilities want to use. The utilities have to meet a state mandated goal of using a certain percentage of renewable energy by 2010.

It is often joked that the remote and rugged North Coast area is usually years behind the rest of the state in keeping up with telecommunications, technology and culture. But when it comes to clean and environmentally friendly energy sources, Humboldt County may be ground zero for a wave of innovative and alternative energy projects already being studied. A new wind energy proposal that is in the early phases of studies is proposing to construct 30-35 wind-powered, electricity-generating turbines along several miles of ridgeline south of Ferndale that would supply 65 to 70 megawatts of electrical power. The Bear River Wind Power project is being researched by Shell Wind Energy, a subsidiary of the international heavyweight Shell corporation.

In a blustery stretch of desert two hours east of Los Angeles, where many of the world's first power-producing windmills were built, a plan for more turbines has triggered a backlash that echoes a national debate over the merits of wind energy. A proposal to build about 50 windmills next to Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument has aroused passions in a region already dotted with 3,000 windmills, with opponents charging that the wind energy industry has neither delivered the promised power nor spared the environment. The industry, which was born in California, now has projects in 40 states and $8 billion in investments over the last two years, according to the American Wind Energy Assn. Supporters say wind power has come of age and will help slow global warming, while critics contend that it has delivered only a quarter of its promised energy, proved lethal to wildlife and, in the view of many residents, blighted the landscape.

Dozens of people were turned away Tuesday from a packed tour about the contentious Dillon Wind Project. About 250 residents and tourists showed up to the PPM Energy "Windmill Tour," which took busloads out to existing wind turbines similar to the 45 that would be built on county and Palm Springs land, about a mile south of Desert Hot Springs. Some area residents are against the project, saying the windmills will ruin views and property values. At recent Desert Hot Springs City Council meetings, residents complained about the air traffic warning lights on the 327-foot-tall structures, plus the sunlight strobe and bird deaths from the turning blades.

Shell Wind Energy has applied to the county to build a major wind power project on remote ridgeline ranch lands about six miles south of Ferndale. An application has been submitted to the Humboldt County Planning Department and awaits only a few pieces of information to be complete. The Bear River Wind Power Project would consist of 30 to 35 turbines generating 60 to 70 megawatts of power. That's more than half of what the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s King Salmon power plant generates, and is enough to supply 60,000 to 70,000 homes with electricity. It would be the first major wind power project in the county, and comes as the state has begun an initiative to cut its emissions in part by asking utilities to develop clean and renewable power.

State utility regulators Thursday approved more sections of Southern California Edison Co.'s $1.8-billion Tehachapi renewable power transmission project as well as a 4.5% rate increase for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The Edison project is designed to allow the flow of renewable power - mainly from wind farms in the Tehachapi area northeast of Los Angeles - and is key to the utility's push to increase the amount of renewable power delivered to its 4.7 million electricity customers. The Tehachapi project has 11 phases that by 2013 will have the potential to bring 4,500 megawatts of renewable power to the state power grid. The California Public Utilities Commission on March 1 approved the transmission line's first phase, which is for 300 megawatts. Phases 2 and 3, which the PUC approved Thursday, are for 400 megawatts.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office is seeking public comment on a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) analyzing a proposed wind energy project in Palm Springs, California. The 45 day public review and comment period began on February 23, 2007. A public scoping meeting was held on June 27, 2006 at the Desert Highland Community Center in Palm Springs with notice of the meeting published in the Desert Sun newspaper. Mountain View Power Partners IV, LLC has applied for a right of way on public lands and a conditional use permit on private lands to construct a wind energy generating facility in the Coachella Valley, in Riverside County.

Taller electrical towers are set to traverse the northern part of the Santa Clarita Valley after state utility authorities Thursday approved construction of a planned power line project that would replace some power line towers in the city with ones that are 70 feet taller. The California Public Utilities Commission approved the Antelope-Pardee Transmission Project that would transport electricity generated from future wind farms in the Tehachapi area to Edison’s Pardee substation located in the Valencia Industrial Center.

An historic wind Energy Power Purchase Agreement was signed on Dec. 21, 2006, by Alta Wind Power Development and Southern California Edison that will generate 1,500 megawatts of energy. “We think it is the largest ever wind power contract and the good news for wind developers in Tehachapi is we’re seeking more,” said SCE Director of Renewable and Alternative Power Stuart Hemphill. Hemphill said SCE is trying to tap into the potential 4,500 megawatts of wind in the Tehachapi area. “With the Alta Wind contract we executed in December we’ve tapped into one-third of that potential,” Hemphill said.

A massive wind power facility proposed for the Tehachapi area, if approved by state regulators, would become the largest project of its kind in the nation. The $3 billion Alta Wind Energy Center would involve installing as many as 750 wind turbines over a 50-square-mile area east and south of Tehachapi. It would generate as much as 1,500 megawatts — more than twice the power of the largest existing wind energy facility in the United States. It also would more than double the wind energy produced in the Tehachapi area.

A big energy company plans to slash the number of wind-powered turbines to about 200 from more than 460 at its sprawling Mesa Wind Farm in the wind-whipped San Gorgonio Pass. Western Wind Energy Corp. met with Bureau of Land Management officials Tuesday in Palm Springs as part of an effort to seek regulatory approval for a major overhaul that’s expected to take four to five years. The company will slim down by bringing in bigger, more technologically advanced windmills that operate much more efficiently. “We’re in the process of doing what’s called a re-powering of the project,” said Mike Boyd, Western Wind’s vice president of development in California. “We plan on gradually converting out the old and bringing in the new.” Western Wind has yet to determine the exact type of wind turbines it will use, Boyd said.

Alameda County supervisors were unimpressed with a proposed monitoring system that would study the impacts of the Altamont Pass windmills on scores of birds, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other protected species. Saying costs for the program appeared to be increasing and that it probably would not sufficiently monitor bird deaths, supervisors directed county staff to find a more thorough system — and stay under the board’s imposed $2 million cost cap.

Alameda County supervisors were unimpressed with a proposed monitoring system that would study the impacts of the Altamont Pass windmills on scores of birds, including golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, burrowing owls and other protected species. Saying costs for the program appeared to be increasing and that it probably would not sufficiently monitor bird deaths, supervisors directed county staff to find a more thorough system — and stay under the board’s imposed $2 million cost cap.

In a precedent-setting move that could have national implications, the California Independent System Operator Corporation (California ISO) filed today with its regulator, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to approve in concept a financing plan for transmission trunklines to remote locations in order to get green power from multiple users onto the grid. If the new payment mechanism is approved and implemented, it would be a first-of-its-kind means of removing financial barriers that can hinder development of wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy resources. Fostering these resources can help California achieve its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which requires most utilities in the state to obtain 20 percent of the electricity they deliver from environmentally-friendly resources by 2010. Unlike natural gas-fired power plants that can usually be built relatively close to existing high-voltage facilities, renewable generation is often built in remote areas. “Wind turbines, large solar power plants and geothermal resources all need to be built close to their natural fuel sources,” said California ISO President and CEO Yakout Mansour. “The California ISO is committed to removing barriers to these types of green resources and doing everything we can to help meet the State’s renewable standards and climate change policies in a timely and reliable manner.”

California's utilities are falling behind schedule in meeting a deadline that 20% of their electricity must come from renewable resources by 2010, newly issued reports from two energy agencies show. In separate updates, state energy regulators paint markedly different pictures of how California is progressing in efforts to procure power from sun, wind, water and waste. But both indicate that a crucial piece of the state's ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases is sputtering. The California Energy Commission offered a bleak assessment in its Jan. 3 report, saying there had been little real addition to the power grid from renewable sources thus far. The state Public Utilities Commission, in a much rosier assessment released Friday, said power companies had signed numerous large contracts for major projects and progress was good. But in its charts, the PUC showed the state meeting its goals by 2011 at the soonest.

California’s investor-owned utilities are making progress toward a state-ordered goal of increasing renewable power, but technical snags could keep them from meeting a 2010 legislative deadline, the California Public Utilities Commission said in a report issued Friday. The utilities are facing a mandate to boost their delivery of electricity from sources such as wind and geothermal plants to 20 percent over the next four years. State lawmakers set that target in 2002 out of concern that California’s reliance on fossil fuels could make it vulnerable to another energy crisis. Exactly how much renewable power will be available by 2010 is difficult to predict, the PUC report cautioned. Some plant construction may be delayed by a limited supply of wind turbines, for example. Transmission lines will be needed to serve new plants.