Some want renewable energy fast; others want to slow down to check on birds.

On Wednesday, attorney Richard Adam, representing the Bedfords, argued that time extension violated the plain language of both the original conditional use permit for the project and the Land Use Development Code.

Allowing a 200-foot weather tower and the management of the Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz International Center will be discussed today by Port of Corpus Christi commissioners. Colorado-based Revolution Energy, LLC filed a permit for a two-year agreement with the port to install a meteorological tower to collect wind data. Tibor Hegedus, president and chief project developer for Revolution, said that if wind conditions are good, the company might invest in a wind farm. Commissioners will discuss leasing a quarter acre near the Corpus Christi Railroad Terminal office on the north side of the harbor. The location provides an ideal location for the tower, Hegedus said. “The visual impact of wind turbines sometimes raises questions of concern, but in a setting with smokestacks and such, it may mitigate concern,” Hegedus said. Commissioners also are expected to award a contract to Ovations Food Service, LP, a subsidiary of Comcast Spectacor, for the management and operation of the Ortiz Center. Comcast Spectacor is a Philadelphia-based sports and entertainment firm. Port officials previously said Comcast was being chosen because of its experience managing facilities. Comcast operates more than 60 facilities in the United States and Canada, including Nueces County’s Richard M. Borchard Regional Fairgrounds. The port looked for a company that would assume all responsibility for the center. Comcast, through its subsidiary Ovations Food Services, would handle accounting, event bookings and catering, he added. The center had been managed by Norris Training Systems Inc., based in Houston, and Water Street Inc. provided catering.

Boulevard Planning Group chair Donna Tisdale did not mince words. "It's immoral, unethical and in my opinion, unlawful," she said. Tisdale and the others were in front of the County Administration Building on Monday calling attention to a vote that the county supervisors will cast on Wednesday.

Western Wind Energy Corporation has reviewed the wind energy marketplace across the United States and has determined to seek new wind energy development opportunities in California. The strategy is focused at 30 sites totaling over 1,200 Megawatts.

On Thursday conservative representative State Rep. Scott Sanford, R-McKinney, filed legislation to remove a signature weapon from the wind energy arsenal. ...Wind power already generates almost 10,000 megawatts, but taking away the mandate to create energy would hurt the renewable energy credit trading system in place, Clark said.

Tierra Energy LLC announced today that it has secured a contract to build a $55 million wind farm that will supply a Wyoming power company with renewable energy. Austin-based Tierra Energy's subsidiary, Happy Jack Windpower, will provide Cheyenne Light Fuel & Power with wind-generated energy over a 20-year period. Cheyenne Light Fuel & Power is a subsidiary of Rapid City, S.D.-based Black Hills Corp. (NYSE:BKH).

The price of progress is now considered a pain to some ears in Shallowater. Some folks there are upset about the new wind energy turbines now being used by Shallowater ISD. The school district turned them on back in January. They’re meant to save tax dollars, but some say the by-product, sound, is too much. Chad Dugger, a resident in the area says, “I can hear them when they turn off and turn back on. It’s not too much fun living here anymore.” The wind turbine is less than 300 feet from Dugger’s back yard.

AMARILLO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2006--Xcel Energy has issued a request for proposals for about 40,500 megawatt-hours of annual renewable energy or renewable energy certificates to be generated from renewable technologies other than wind turbines.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are trying to pass House Bill 1273 and the bill says that money given by wind energy farms to wealthy districts need to be part of "Robin Hood." "Robin Hood" will then distribute the money through out other districts. Now some school districts in the Big Country can be heavily affected if House Bill 1273 passes.

Wind power developer Higher Perpetual Energy and turbine manufacturer DeWind are on their way to spending about $1.2 billion to boost wind energy in the Panhandle. The plan is for a total of 310 turbines across the region in three years. The pair are finishing two small wind farms, with two larger ones on the drawing board. "The small ones will be very profitable," said David Tatton, president of Higher Perpetual Energy. "But they are also test projects for the teams working together."

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 Spanish-owned corporation wants to build a new wind farm in the East County with more than 100 wind turbines. Executives rolled into Boulevard recently to pitch their plan, and reaction was not too friendly. Executives from the Iberdrola Energy Company showed up with a slick Power Point presentation, colorful graphics and a few dozen chocolate bars - dark chocolate with a logo on the wrapper. All this to pitch a new wind farm project to the Boulevard Community Planning Group.

The Martifer Group, a Portugal-based global construction company, will build a $40 million wind-turbine tower manufacturing plant here, Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday. ...Attracting Martifer comes at a significant price -- more than $8 million in city, county and state incentives and abatements, with potentially $15 million more in rail improvements still to be negotiated between the state and the Texas Pacifico Railroad.

Hundreds of Tehachapi residents are trying to ban a wind farm from blowing into their part of town, but Kern County may not have legal grounds to stop the San Diego company that wants to build it. The nearly 700 Tehachapi residents have signed a petition against giant wind generators, but it's not because they're anti-environment. It's quite the opposite. They just don't want the wind farms blowing in their back yards. "If you picture a football field spinning in the air, that's how big they will be," Kassandra McQuillen explained.

FAIRVIEW -- Advocates of the "small wind" generating business have landed another customer.

Dale Rankin was interviewed by the show for his perspective on wind energy and for his involvement in a lawsuit three years ago brought by Rankin and other Taylor County residents against FPL Energy, an affiliate of Florida Power & Light Co. "My name is used on the lawsuit title (Dale Rankin, et al, plaintiffs vs. FPL Energy, et al Defendants), though there are 11 of us who sued," he said. Rankin and the other plaintiffs lost the lawsuit in 2006, but they have appealed. The lawsuit sought to stop construction of wind turbines on nearby Elm Valley property as part of the Horse Hollow wind farm. ...Consultant Tom Tanton, vice president and senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, is serving as technical consultant for the appeal, Rankin said.

A "wind farm" that would take advantage of the gusts that have been blowing through the Central Coast at 30 to 50 mph is moving right along despite a lawsuit filed against the county's approval of the project. Construction won't begin for at least a year, but in the meantime officials of the developer say they are working to meet all the requirements imposed by the county with the intention of protecting the environment surrounding the "clean energy" project.

A worker hurt during an East County wind-farm accident Monday remained hospitalized Tuesday, while a colleague was expected to go home, company officials said. The two were working around noon Monday in the nacelle, or hub, of a wind turbine on the Campo Indian Reservation when a piece of electrical equipment sent off a giant spark.

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.