A $400 million renewable energy project could begin construction next month and would power roughly a quarter-million Southern California homes. The plan has received no criticism during a public-input phase that ends Oct. 6. An open house Thursday in Milford introduced Beaver County residents to the plan that would put 159 wind turbines - each 262 feet tall - across 40-square miles on public and private land located 10 miles northeast of town.

A 19-megawatt, nine-turbine wind-energy facility is up and running, selling electricity to PacifiCorp and representing the first utility-scale wind project in the state's history. "I'm sure others will catch up and pass it, because it's not a big project by wind-energy standards, but it is the biggest in Utah at the moment," said Randolph Mann, vice president of wind development for Edison Mission Group Inc., based in Irvine, Calif. EMG manages the power-generation business and other unregulated subsidiaries of Edison International.

Once considered wasteland, this expanse of sunshine and wind is now a prized battleground between unlikely opponents. For generations, conservationists like Sall's family have guarded the landscape, but 21st Century demands for renewable energy are threatening to crash into the pristine desert, now deemed a gold mine for solar, wind and geothermal farms. Unlike offshore drilling and other oil and gas ventures in which developers and environmentalists are obvious adversaries, renewable energy is increasingly pitting two kinds of green advocates against each other as the nation seeks alternative sources in the face of record oil prices and global warming, both sides say.

Growers and ranchers in the southern reaches of California are posing the latest obstacle to the state's push for green power. Faced with the possibility of losing land to make way for power transmission lines, they have urged state commissioners to avoid their property when deciding the final route of the project linking energy-hungry consumers on the coast with renewable energy operations in the Southern California desert. San Diego Gas & Electric Co. contends that stringing high-voltage lines over agricultural land in San Diego and Imperial counties as part of its $1.5-billion Sunrise Powerlink project is the most secure and economic way to deliver wind, solar and geothermal energy.

The Bureau of Land Management is currently processing two dozen applications for wind and solar projects in the eastern Kern desert. Meanwhile, the Kern County Planning Department has received applications for wind and solar as well as a biogas pipeline and sludge-to-energy plant. ...Kern's wind farms now generate 710 megawatts of wind energy, but that's expected to grow by an additional 4,500 megawatts in the next decade due to the ongoing construction of Southern California Edison's Tehachapi Transmission line project.

By the end of 2010, the state's large, investor-owned utilities are supposed to ensure that 20 percent of the power they sell comes from such renewable sources as the sun and wind. Utilities such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have been frantically signing contracts with wind farm and solar power plant developers to meet that deadline. But the report, the California Public Utilities Commission's latest quarterly update on the state's renewable power efforts, designed to fight global warming, found that the utilities probably won't reach 20 percent until 2012 or 2013. Most of the new wind farms and solar power plants they need have not yet been built.

A massive, 7,500-page draft environmental study released in January concluded that the route preferred by SDG&E through Anza-Borrego was among the least preferable environmentally. Of the top seven alternatives, the study ranked five others higher, including a "southern route" for the transmission line along Interstate 8. SDG&E officials argued that the alternate southern route proposed in the environmental study was not feasible because it required crossing tribal lands owned by the Campo and La Posta Indians. ...But top SDG&E officials contended that any southern route would require crossing tribal land when they met with top advisers to the PUC

Wind power's intermittency as an energy resource but minimal contributions toward peak-capacity needs are further evidenced in operational data from three Washington and Montana wind farms. Monthly and even daily energy production vary substantially. Officials from NorthWestern Energy and Puget Sound Energy recently shared these and other wind-power experiences, including reserve requirements (challenging) and wind forecasting (improving). These tales come from the 135 MW-capacity Judith Gap wind farm in central Montana, whose entire output NorthWestern buys from developer Invenergy Wind, and PSE's 150 MW-capacity Hopkins Ridge and 229 MW-capacity Wild Horse wind projects in southeastern and central Washington, respectively. ..."The relationship between load and wind output is almost zero," the former council member told the current council. "That's a real issue for us. We continue to learn almost every day some things about wind operations on our system."

The Anschutz Corporation, through an affiliate Transwest Express LLC, has acquired the rights to develop a proposed $3 billion, 900-mile, 3,000 megawatt high-voltage transmission line to bring electricity from wind farms in southern Wyoming to growing markets of southern California, Las Vegas and Phoenix. ...Another Anschutz affiliate, Power Company of Wyoming, LCC, already has started work developing a 2,000 megawatt wind farm project in Carbon County Wyoming.

Kern County supervisors Tuesday blessed a disputed wind park project proposed on 5,820 acres 15 miles west of Rosamond. The project would produce 300 megawatts of power, enough to light at least 90,000 homes, county planners said. Dispute over the project centered on a military testing facility nearby. Military contractor Northrop Grumman Co. had said the radar clutter from energy company enXco's plans would kill operations at its Tejon Test Facility, where work on the B2 bomber is under way.

Strong neighborhood opposition to a proposed wind turbine on a Torrance elementary school campus has prompted officials to drop the project. Residents near Hickory Elementary School flooded Torrance Unified School District officials with calls Monday after reading in the Daily Breeze about the proposed turbine that would tower almost 40 feet over the neighborhood. Opponents were concerned about aesthetic, noise and safety issues.

A second local wind turbine project was proposed for an area near Camp Rock Road - the latest example in the statewide push for renewable energy as presented at the most recent Municipal Advisory Council meeting. FPL Energy of Florida plans to construct 34 turbines - which are a total of 389 feet tall, the equivalent of a 40-story building - on just 52 of those acres, explained Eduardo Batalla, director of wind energy projects for the company. The utilized property will be along the ridge of the mountains. Batalla said that West Fry Wind Project is in talks with the Bureau of Land Management to acquire 3,100 acres by Camp Rock Road in the Johnson Valley Off-Road Vehicle area.

A fund that helps the state's largest utilities buy renewable energy at above-market rates won't last much longer, possibly providing the big power firms with a loophole to get out of looming renewable energy mandates. ...Meanwhile, utilities complain, the state's method of determining market rates sets the price benchmark artificially low. As a result, the utilities will run through the renewable kitty faster than expected, and in fact, could spend the whole amount, on just a few projects. The CPUC says the money will run out in the next 12 to 18 months.

On Friday morning, elected officials, environmentalists and energy company representatives heralded the unveiling of the Dillon Wind Power Project, a group of 45 turbines towering more than 300 feet above the Coachella Valley. ...The Palm Springs wind farms have been built out, and there are few options other than upgrading their aging turbines. A number of proposals have been submitted to the state Bureau of Land Management, but one - a proposal that would build up to 28 turbines six miles east of Apple Valley and is the farthest along in the approval process - could be San Bernardino County's first wind farm. ...The proposal's 410-foot ridgeline turbines, however, have created controversy.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says it has yet to pick a preferred route for Green Path North, a proposed electrical corridor running from Desert Hot Springs to Hesperia. ...But folks from the California Desert Coalition and a local chapter of the Sierra Club say a route has been chosen, and they intend to show people where the agency intends to install the high-tension corridor. "I think it's important to educate people about what the landscape looks like and how pristine the conservation lands are," said April Sall, one of the organizers. "It's extremely sensitive habitat." ..."Green Path North, which will be our transmission corridor serving Los Angeles will transfer renewable energy from the Salton Sea," Nahai said.

As wind power becomes more common, its unpredictability becomes more of a problem. Sudden drops in wind speed can send grid operators scrambling to cover the shortfall and even cause blackouts; unexpected surges can leave conventional power plants idling, incurring costs and spewing pollution to no purpose. ...When wind farms were less common, grid controllers could essentially ignore their varying output, as it was all but indistinguishable from natural fluctuations in consumer use.

This article provides a good explanation of some of the key issues pertaining to industrial wind energy development including capacity factors, the unpredictability of the winds, and the impacts on birds and wildlife.

Nearly two dozen more wind turbines have gone into operation near Rio Vista, part of a Sacramento utility's efforts to get 23 percent of its power from renewable sources in the next three years. Sacramento Municipal Utility District has completed the second phase of its Solano County wind "farm" with the addition of 21, 415-feet tall wind turbines. ...each turbine costs about $4.5 million installed and should last about 20 years.

An advisory panel said Friday the Sunrise Powerlink transmission line is consistent with two key energy goals: boosting reliance on green electricity sources such as the sun and wind and increasing the ability to import power. The San Diego Association of Governments' Regional Planning Committee, composed of a half-dozen city and county officials, voted 4-1 to adopt that advisory conclusion after it was suggested by Escondido Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler, who supports the proposed $1.3 billion power line. ...The Sunrise Powerlink would string high-voltage wires from metal lattice towers as tall as 160 feet for 140 miles between El Centro and Carmel Valley. An additional 10 miles of wires would be buried underground. The line would run through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos. In a related development Friday, project supporters announced that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had endorsed the line late last year.