Predicting that it will be the largest wind transmission project in the country, Southern California Edison on Friday announced it was breaking ground on a desert wind farm that could provide power for upwards of 3 million homes by 2013. Officials estimate that the Tehachapi Renewal Project will eventually provide 4,500 megawatts of electricity. The project will harness the wind that blows through the Tehachapi Mountains about 100 miles north of Los Angeles.

In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. But the couple next door insisted they should not have to chop down the trees to accommodate Mark Vargas' energy demands because they planted the redwoods before he installed the solar panels in 2001. Experts say such clashes could become more common as California promotes renewable energy and solar systems become more popular. ...The law requires homeowners to keep their trees or shrubs from shading more than 10 percent of a neighbor's solar panels between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., when the sun is strongest. Existing trees that cast shadows when the panels are installed are exempt, but new growth is subject to the law.

Desert Hot Springs City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a wind farm replacement project that will deposit $40,000 a year with a 2.5 percent annual increase for the life of the project into city coffers. Proposed by Energy Unlimited Inc., a family-owned energy company, the project will replace 16 old turbines that stand 115 feet tall with eight 340-foot turbines along the southern edge of the city. ...Some residents near to the wind farms, however, aren't too excited. Joyce Manley, a Whitewater resident who lives off Painted Hill Road, said she is "almost totally surrounded" by the windmills and has been fighting the installation of newer turbines since 2001.

City officials broke ground Thursday on a mountainside wind farm that is expected to produce enough electricity to power 56,000 homes when it's completed next year. The 8,000-acre Pine Tree Wind Project in the Tehachapi Mountains about 100 miles north of Los Angeles will more than double the portion of energy the nation's second-largest city gets from wind and help fulfill its pledge to having a fifth of its energy come from renewable sources by 2010, officials said. The $425 million, 120 megawatt facility will have 80 turbines and a new high-voltage transmission line.

San Bernardino County officials are asking the city of Los Angeles to stay out of environmentally sensitive areas in the Morongo Basin as it puts together plans to build power transmission lines through desert communities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is planning to build a system of electrical towers and power lines from Desert Hot Springs to Hesperia to transmit energy from geothermal, solar and wind projects in the Imperial Valley. ...Depending on the route chosen, the Green Path North project would traverse from 79 to 350 miles through areas such as Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley and Pioneertown. San Bernardino County Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, whose 3rd District includes some of the areas affected, proposed the resolution, saying the project would delve into relatively pristine desert areas and harm scenic vistas. ...Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt said that the city's plans indicate that following the federally designated corridor could be expensive, requiring the purchase of up to 2,500 homes.

After electrical power lines were found to have caused several of the recent wildfires, countless area residents came to the same conclusion: Bury the backcountry lines to prevent future blazes. ...But the utility industry says most ratepayers balk at burying lines when confronted with the actual costs. ...SDG&E says Sunrise is needed to ensure local electric reliability and to access electricity from renewable-energy projects ...Opponents say the line would be environmentally damaging, isn't needed and would heighten the threat of fire. They suggest money for the project would be better spent on building renewable-energy projects and conservation within the county.

Looking east into Gilliam County and north into Washington, turbines are strung over ridgelines as far as the eye can see. And there are nowhere near enough of them. ...West Coast utilities and independent power producers are locked in a land rush to secure the best wind sites and the power they produce. Coupled with a worldwide shortage of turbines and a falling dollar, the resulting scarcity is driving up the cost of wind power, a burden electricity ratepayers will shoulder.

A big-rig's load - a 128,000-pound section of a pylon for a wind turbine - shifted as the rig was headed south on Route 113 south of Dixon early Wednesday, triggering a 10-hour traffic nightmare. No injuries were reported. According to the California Highway Patrol, a section of the support pylon for a wind turbine destined for Montezuma Hills was being transported southbound on Highway 113 ...around 4 a.m. when a stabilizing bar on the 168-foot-long trailer carrying the pylon broke and allowed the cargo to shift.

Wind varies tremendously, Louton said. The study shows that wind could swing from 100 MW of capacity output to 6,000 MW from day to day and that existing variations ranged from 30 MW to 1,800 MW. When energy is needed most, wind drops off, but during off-peak hours the wind can exceed demand and needs to be regulated or the output compensated by backing off other generators. On July 27, 2006, during an extended heat wave, wind power output dropped back to 7% of capacity, or about 60 MW, Louton said. ...The study estimates that 12,600 MW of other types of callable generation resources will have to be online to accommodate the 20% portfolio.

Sometimes the vagaries of county government even can confuse folks who attend and participate in a meeting - and maybe even the decision-makers themselves. A curious case in point - The Tuesday, Oct. 2 Lassen County Planning Commission meeting where an application for a meteorological tower on private land was up for approval. Opponents of Invenergy's Horse Lake Wind Farm project claim they won a round at the meeting because the commission failed to approve the permit application. ...Anderson said while none of the other commissioners apparently wanted to approve the permit application, the commission did not make and carry a motion to disapprove it before moving on to other business.

Like any industry worth its lobbyists, Silicon Valley pushes hard for the legislation it wants. And this year, it wants a new federal energy law. A climate change law, too.

A proposal to add up to 88 wind turbines to the 700 already spinning in the Montezuma Hills has been tabled for two months as a result of a Solano County Planning Commission meeting Thursday night. ... Officials from Travis Air Force Base have said the projects pose a potential safety hazard. The problem, they've explained, is that the additional wind turbines could be incompatible with the ASR-11 radar system the base plans to have operational by October 2008.

A proposed wind-power project would provide more energy, but also could create visual, biological and other problems in the Lompoc area, according to residents and others who spoke up last week at a hearing. ...Longtime Lompoc resident Al Thompson expressed concern about the visual impact and noise of the turbines. He wondered how visible they would be in the night sky, and how much of a dull drone they would create. "It's such an assault on the human senses," Thompson said.

When San Diego Gas & Electric unveiled the Sunrise Powerlink two years ago, the company gave three essential reasons for building the 150-mile long power line: Renewable energy, Savings, Reliability. The power line's $447 million annual savings was cut to $142 million a year after erroneous calculations were uncovered. A solar energy project whose fate was once tied to the line has failed to demonstrate that it works on a commercial scale. SDG&E has equivocated about how much renewable energy can be found in Imperial County, where the line will begin. The company has waffled about whether the line is necessary to spark renewable energy development in Imperial County. And the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, a state watchdog, has said SDG&E won't need the power line to keep the lights on until at least 2014.

After years of lawsuits, a settlement was finally reached early this year to try to reduce bird kills at the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area in Alameda County. But critics charge that the new agreement makes an already bad situation even worse...........The avian mortality problem at Altamont illustrates the complex nature of energy production-even "good" sources such as wind have impacts. Smallwood is "aghast that our natural resource agencies-federal and state-allow the companies to do this when as an individual I can get a shotgun and shoot a golden eagle, but I'd go to jail."

Visual impact will result from the proximity of the wind turbines to Jalama Beach County Park and that of an accompanying new power line to Highway 1. The power line could be hidden by use of an overland route to the PG&E substation in Lompoc, but the turbines will be visible from Jalama unless the project is limited to 50 turbines. Also unavoidable will be the destruction of birds and bats killed in collisions with turbine blades. That's what troubles the Audubon Society, the only organized group to raise significant questions about the project. "We are not totally against it," said Tamarah Taaffe, treasurer of the La Purisima chapter of Audubon. "We just want it placed optimally. On any wind farm, placement is the most important thing. Our basic goal was to support it and work with them on placement." Taaffe added, however, that she considered the county's avian studies inadequate. "Their bird studies were like trying to determine how many kids would go to a school by driving by during Easter vacation," she said. Taafe enumerated the long-eared owl, the horned lark and the golden eagle as species at risk. "The blades move at 200 mph at the tip. It looks kind of lazy but they are so massive. Each blade is replaced within a second. That's not terribly slow." The EIR document acknowledges inevitable damage. "We know birds will be killed," said Drude, a county energy specialist. "So we're going to assume the worst. Since we don't know the number, we'll adapt to it. We're suggesting ‘adaptive mitigation.' If there are turbines which are more dangerous (than others) they could be shut down at certain hours or seasons."

The number of power towers behind homes on Paseo Del Palacio Street will be increased by 50 percent. The street is just one example of a densely populated residential area that will be affected by the proposed power line project. For every two existing power lines, a new one will be added in between, said Chuck Adamson, Southern California Edison's senior project manager, about Paseo Del Palacio Street on Tuesday.

The environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed 80-turbine wind farm near Mojave is adequate, an appeals court has ruled, clearing the way for construction to begin. In approving the EIR, the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno rejected the arguments of the Kerncrest and Los Angeles branches of the Audubon Society. The court also ordered the Audubon society to pay legal bills incurred by the Los Angeles City Department of Water and Power (LADWP).

A plan for a giant power line through San Diego County has suffered setbacks and delays this month, and some industry observers -- though not all -- suggest that the proposed line's chances of approval are shrinking. A state official last week ordered a delay in the approval process for the $1.3 billion project, known as Sunrise Powerlink, because the 150-mile line proposed by San Diego Gas & Electric Co. raised unanswered environmental questions.

A state commissioner today issued a ruling that will delay a decision on San Diego Gas & Electric Co's proposed power line until summer 2008 at the earliest. A decision on the $1.3 billion Sunrise Powerlink, a 150-mile superhighway of electricity the utility wants to string between El Centro and San Diego, was scheduled to be delivered in January 2008. However, because of new information about the project's potential impacts that surfaced in hearings this month, Commissioner Dian M. Grueneich postponed the Aug. 3 completion date for an environmental impact report until Jan. 8, 2008. Grueneich ordered the final report to be delivered by June 6, 2008.