The public is invited to hear John Stahl speak at the Arguello Group of the Sierra Club’s meeting at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the First Presbyterian Church of Lompoc, 1600 Berkeley Drive.

Alameda County supervisors approved the initial phase of a monitoring system that will study the impact the Altamont windmills have on scores of birds — including golden eagles, red tail hawks, burrowing owls and other protected species. The board unanimously approved the $610,000, six-month program after hesitating in July to support a $3 million, three-year plan to monitor bird deaths in the Altamont. At that July meeting, supervisors agreed to cap the program — to be paid for by the turbine operators in the Altamont — at $2 million, saying costs for the monitoring had spiraled out of control. The monitoring program will be a collaborative operation of UC Santa Cruz, WEST Inc. and Jones & Stokes, the top three bidders for the project. The group will monitor avian deaths at the 5,400 windmills east of Livermore.

Wells Fargo & Co. became the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the country after an agreement to buy renewable energy certificates to support wind energy.

Critics say the L.A. utility, facing a 2010 deadline to develop renewable power sources, hasn't exactly been burning the midnight oil. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has long provided the city with cheap, reliable electricity, even when other utilities faced scarcity. But the low energy bills have come attached to millions of tons of fossil fuel pollutants, which have swirled in waterways and hovered in skies all over the West. Now the nation's largest municipal utility is at a turning point. It is under orders to find environmentally friendly fuel sources — sun, wind, water or even waste. And it must do so in a hurry: At least a fifth of the power it provides must be "green" by 2010. So far the transition has been slow, and critics are skeptical that the agency has the will or know-how to make such a significant shift so quickly. The $3.9-billion department — by far the city's largest — is widely seen as insular, if not arrogant, and has at times been hostile to pressure from outsiders.

STOCKTON - One-quarter of the nation's electricity could come from renewable sources like wind, the sun and the ocean tide within two decades' time, a California conservation group claimed Thursday. But only with strong federal leadership from whoever takes - or keeps - the reins after November's election. Los Angeles-based Environment California released a study Thursday proposing a 10 percent drop in home, business and industrial energy use, as well as a reduction of oil demand by one-third and a commitment to renewable energy.

GILLETTE -- Wyoming officials watched with interest as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday signed into law a sweeping global warming initiative that imposes the nation's first cap on greenhouse gas emissions. When the idea for such a bill was recommended about a year ago, Wyoming energy officials reacted strongly against it -- and even sent a letter to Schwarzenegger's office suggesting it may violate interstate commerce laws. Called for reaction on Wednesday, Gov. Dave Freudenthal's energy adviser, Rob Hurless, said he wasn't prepared to discuss interstate commerce concerns, but said the California law definitely is not a threat to Wyoming's ambitions to export more electricity.

A landmark global warming law that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to sign today commits California to the ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020. How exactly that will be accomplished — and at what cost — is unknown. But it’s clear that if the state intends to meet its goals, Californians will see many changes over the next 14 years, from higher fuel prices to bigger forests.....But California also is taking a big risk. If others do not follow, the state’s residents and companies could end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars to make cuts that by themselves will do little to curb global warming.

When peak demand hits, as it did during this year's sweltering July, the center would be called into action, the company said. The plant, planned to be built on Clawiter Road near PG&E's Eastshore substation, would only operate during peak demand periods, according to the company...... The Eastshore plant would use less water annually than five residences, the company said, with its engines cooled by a closed-water system. It would be built using state-of-the-art air emissions control technology.

Under pressure from environmental activist groups such as Defenders of Wildlife and the Los Angeles Audubon Society, the California Energy Commission on August 10 released bird and bat protection guidelines for local wind power permitting agencies. Although the guidelines are neither mandatory nor enforceable, the move represents growing concern that industrial wind farms are taking an unacceptable toll on bird and bat populations. The most recent avian mortality studies show between 1,750 and 4,700 birds are killed every year at California's Altamont Pass wind farm alone. Similar mortality numbers are reported at industrial wind farms in Solano County and other parts of the state. The Los Angeles Audubon Society says there is a lack of research into how industrial wind farms, many of which are located in migratory flyways, affect songbird flight patterns. The group is seeking a moratorium on turbine operation for several hours each day during the spring and autumn migration seasons.

At the halfway point between the West Coast energy crisis of 2001 and the next major electricity contract renewal year of 2011, a federal power marketing agency is proposing a policy change that could affect rates in the Pacific Northwest for generations and become a national model for energy development. Northwest hydropower is one of the cheapest energy resources in the nation - about half the current market rate for electricity. The Bonneville Power Administration - which sells power in all of Washington, Oregon and Idaho and parts of California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana - announced this summer it wants to change the way it charges utilities for its wholesale power, to keep rates low.

Solano County has everything it needs to harness the power of wind. The gusts that skim the rolling Montezuma Hills near Rio Vista provide ample breeze to spin the 90 massive wind turbines that comprise one of California's largest wind farms. But that's just one of many key elements needed for a successful operation. "You need available land, access to and availability on the high-voltage transmission system, and you need a customer," said Steve Stengel, corporate communications manager for FPL Energy, the nation's largest alternative energy producer of its kind. "What you have in Solano is all of those elements that come together."

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger prepares this week to sign into law the nation's most ambitious effort to address global warming, a key component of California's push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions -- increasing the use of renewable power to create electricity -- has faltered. Despite overwhelming public and political support for renewable power, ratepayer contributions of $319 million, and a 2002 law mandating a dramatic increase in the use of sun and wind to create megawatts, California has boosted its use of renewable energy by less than 1 percent of the state's overall electricity use in the past four years.

Up to 49 wind turbines could line 6½ miles of ridgeline near Burney -- and might be visible from parts of downtown Redding. If approved, the $180 million Hatchet Ridge Wind Project would harness up to 125 megawatts of electricity at the site of the 1992 Fountain Fire, seven miles west of Burney and north of Highway 299. The turbines could reach 500 feet tall.

Wind farms in Kansas, Nebraska and California will play a role in Colorado Springs Utilities’ compliance with a voter-approved mandate on renewable energy. But homes and businesses in Colorado Springs won’t be getting electricity produced by harnessing wind in those places. Instead, renewable energy credits will be logged into Colorado Springs Utilities’ books.

The California Energy Commission will host a two-day workshop in Bakersfield later this month to develop statewide guidelines that protect birds and bats from death or injury from running into the whirling blades of the state’s thousands of windmills. The issue has seen extensive legal action over windmills in the Altamont Pass, which connects the Central Valley to the Bay Area. “Currently, wind projects are handled at the local level; there are no statewide guidelines in place to help reduce the impacts of wind development on birds and bats,” says Energy Commissioner John Geesman.

More than 96 percent of Californians believe wind power should be a part of the state's future mix of renewable energy resources, according to a survey to be released today of 500 Californians by California State University, Sacramento professor Dennis Tootelian for FPL Energy. The Florida-based energy company is California's largest wind energy producer.

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a request Tuesday to the California Public Utilities Commission for a 60-day extension of a comment period regarding a Southern California Edison power line project in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. Edison's project would construct additional high-power transmission lines and towers from the Antelope Valley to the Pardee power station in Santa Clarita. The power provider has proposed a 500 kilovolt transmission line from Tehachapi to its Antelope substation. The second-stage, 25.6-mile segment would stretch to Santa Clarita from the Antelope Valley.....Alis Clausen, Edison's northern region manager, said the project was part of a Utilities Commission request to Edison to find a way of sending wind energy from Kern County into the electric grid.

After balking at a $3 million plan to monitor the impact of the Altamont windmills on scores of birds -- including protected species such as golden eagles, red tail hawks and burrowing owls -- the Alameda County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a down-sized monitoring plan today. The proposed $600,000 contract, scaled back from a monitoring system proposed in July, calls for 6,000 hours of monitoring in a six-month period and is expected to be only the initial phase in a longer study. The previous plan called for more than 12,000 hours. According to a study released in 2004 by the California Energy Commission, an estimated 1,700 to 4,700 birds die each year by flying into whirring turbine blades or being electrocuted by transmission lines that thread through the 50,000-acre Altamont Wind Resource Area.

"Wind is more an intermittent energy supply," said Amy Morgan, a spokeswoman for the California Energy Commission, which certifies solar and wind systems that are eligible for state tax credits. Morgan said only about 2 percent of the applicants asking for tax credits are using wind energy. Most are choosing solar.

So what happened in California during the mid-July heat storm when that electric grid was put to the test, and California avoided rolling blackouts amid a Level 1 Emergency in which Californian’s were asked to raise their thermostats to 77 and many manufactures and business voluntarily shutdown? By most people’s analysis, wind’s performance was disappointing. Specifically during this period of peak demand, statewide wind often operated at only 5% of capacity, or less.