The Palm Springs Planning Commission approved about 50 windmills on Wednesday. ...The turbines would be about 3,000 feet from the Mountain Gate housing community and 2,000 feet from where College of the Desert's west valley campus is planned.

Opponents of the Sunrise Powerlink are vowing to keep on fighting despite Thursday's vote by the California Public Utilities Commission approving the big power line from Imperial County to San Diego. Groups representing consumers, environmentalists and backcountry activists say the process was unfairly tilted in favor of San Diego Gas & Electric, which proposed the line in 2005. They are weighing legal options, such as asking appeals court judges to review the decision to make sure it was done properly.

The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday cleared the way for construction of the Sunrise Powerlink, a contentious transmission line that promises to bring more reliable and renewable power from the Imperial Valley to San Diego. The 4-1 vote allows San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to move forward with the 123-mile, $1.9 billion power-line project, which could deliver enough electricity to serve 650,000 households.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. said it must build a $1.9 billion, 123-mile transmission line to harness solar, wind and underground heat from a distant desert. Critics question if the high-voltage power line will deliver on its promise of providing renewable power from California's Imperial Valley to the nation's eighth-largest city. They say it will blight the mountain landscape with 150-foot towers, and they emphasize that ratepayers will pick up the tab. Those views will clash Thursday when the California Public Utilities Commission meets in San Francisco to consider approving the power line.

The board votes to grant more time for ongoing discussions between the parties involved. The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-0 (Supervisor Joni Gray recused herself) to continue a hearing on appeals of the Lompoc Wind Energy Project to a date in February 2009.

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider an appeal of the Lompoc Wind Energy Project, a proposed wind farm of up to 65 wind turbine generators. ...Opponents, however, have raised issues about the effects of the nearly 400-foot tall turbines on views and quality of life in the 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.

Two appeals filed against the approval of the Lompoc wind energy project are on the board's agenda, but the project applicant requested Friday that they be postponed. The supervisors received the letters from Acciona Energy asking for a 60-day continuance, because it would provide more time to work with the appellants - Lompoc area residents George and Cheryl Bedford and the California Department of Fish and Game. ...The state Department of Fish and Game was more concerned with bird and bat deaths that are common to wind turbines.

The nearly 8 percent rate increase Redding Electric Utility will seek Tuesday for next year and 2010 could be just the beginning of a long, steady and rather steep cost climb for customers. Rate forecasts through 2014 show REU imposing identical 7.84 percent increases each year while still chewing through wads of cash. ...Redding has made up for the lost hydropower, in part, by commissioning a pair of large gas-fired turbines at its plant on Clear Creek Road. The utility has also entered long-term contracts for wind and biomass power. The wind and biomass have allowed REU to meet state renewable energy mandates. But all three power sources cost more than twice as much as hydropower, adding $10.5 million each year on average to REU's fuel tab, Hauser said.

Two appeals filed against the approval of the Lompoc wind energy project are on the board's agenda, but the project applicant requested Friday that they be postponed. The supervisors received the letters from Acciona Energy asking for a 60-day continuance, because it would provide more time to work with the appellants - Lompoc area residents George and Cheryl Bedford and the California Department of Fish and Game.

Kittitas County commissioners approved an agreement on Tuesday with a wind energy company that has the firm paying Kittitas County for the staff work required to deal with the development of its wind farm. Invenergy Wind North America LLC, through its subsidiary Vantage Wind Energy LLC, will pay the county $110,000 for handling county requirements for the planned 69-turbine wind farm proposed.

Avista Corp. will delay building a wind farm south of Reardan by at least two years, citing the high cost of the wind turbines. "This stuff is really expensive," said Hugh Imhof, a spokesman for the Spokane-based utility. "Why build a $125 million wind farm if we don't need it for another two years?"

The permitting disputes demonstrate some of the hurdles that renewable energy developers face not just in California, but nationwide, and cast a light on the difficulties policy makers face in trying to balance clean-energy development with other environmental goals. "There has to be some reconciling of two very important societal values: protection of wildlife including birds, and moving forward with some haste to get alternative energy going," said Doug Anthony, deputy director of the Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department's Energy Division.

The towers are visible from the back of Milligan's Cavi at The Big Oaks, but he says it's not those power lines that concern him. The restaurateur is bothered by the lines that Southern California Edison will soon install midway down the slope in Bouquet Canyon as part of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project. The towers would dominate the view from Milligan's backyard bar and grill and he believes they would spoil Bouquet Canyon's rare natural environment.

Longview realtor Bill Hallanger has been pressing the committee to draft a policy so he can put up an $8,000 windmill he bought from an Arizona company earlier this year. ...County officials say they must review proposals like Hallanger's to protect neighbors from noise and other impacts.

Electricity generated by a massive "wind farm" of giant windmills near Tehachapi will be carried through transmission lines to Southern California. ...But not everyone sees the rosy side of Edison's "green" project.

The unanimous decision by the state's highest court that upheld the governor's approval of the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project has stirred both disappointment and jubilation, depending on how one views the role of state and local government. Those opposed to the site of the 65-turbine wind farm 12 miles north of Ellensburg say the decision bodes ill for local governments.

Wind power advocates won a convincing battle in the Washington Supreme Court, which ruled Thursday that local county commissioners can't block the way for wind power turbine farms. In a unanimous verdict (one justice didn't participate), the court ruled that Kittitas County commissioners couldn't stop the construction of a wind power farm on Highway 97 about halfway between Cle Elum and Ellensburg.

The state Supreme Court has upheld Gov. Chris Gregoire's approval of a wind farm in Kittitas County, despite the objections of local officials.

Lincoln County Commissioners, during their regular meeting November 10, said they were not opposed to the development of wind-generated power in the County, but would rather seek different locations than the ones being proposed. Mission Edison Group, a subsidiary of Southern California Edison, had approached the County about building wind generators on Mt. Wilson and Table Mountain, both a little north of Pioche. County Commissioners have said they do not think those locations are the best places for such large generators.