TRINIDAD - Local ranchers and concerned citizens filled the Massari Performing Arts Center Thursday night to voice frustrations over the proposed Pinon Canyon expansion. While many came with the same complaints and ideas, a new kind of voice emerged from the crowd when one man suggested the area’s potential for wind energy could substantially increase land values. "If it has the potential to be a wind farm, that could bring in a lot of money for the county and the property owner," he said. "If that makes the land too expensive, the army might just decide to go elsewhere. The potential for wind energy could raise the cost of the appraisal value. If that’s added in, it will raise the bottom line."

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden is planning to build a multimillion-dollar wind- blade testing plant. But it won’t be in Colorado. Plans for the nation’s second wind research center include testing wind blades as long as 230 feet. Lack of adequate federal dollars and the difficulty of transporting long wind blades to an inland region such as Colorado are prompting NREL to build the plant somewhere else, possibly along the coasts or the Great Lakes easily accessed by ships and barges.

The state will need to produce an additional 4,900 megawatts of new power sources by 2025 - either by building new baseload plants, decreasing demand through conservation measures or a combination of both - in order to meet expected growth and avoid energy shortages.

DENVER (AP) - Xcel Energy has announced plans for two more wind farms in Colorado to help it comply with a voter-approved initiative requiring it to obtain ten percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015.

SPRINGFIELD - A local energy group has received an $80,000 grant to install test towers for a proposed wind farm in Baca County. A group called Baca Green Energy, which consists of local farmers and landowners, is trying to establish a wind farm near Springfield. The group is hoping to build a large wind farm of 100 or more generators.

Quayle Hodek is sitting on a gold mine of green power. He is the keeper of valuable "wind energy credits" for customers who want the electricity powering their homes and businesses to come from wind farms sprinkled across the nation.

Wind-minded companies such as the resort negotiate their own deals, getting discounts along the way.

So far, the Colorado Division of Wildlife has documented more than 70 raptor nests in the project area. Among those species: Swainson's hawks, ferruginous hawks, golden eagles and prairie falcons. The area, along with the Comanche National Grassland, is recognized by the National Audubon Society as a Colorado site of "global importance," said Ken Strom, Colorado Audubon's director of bird conservation.

Vail Resorts will not install wind turbines atop its slopes or use direct wind energy to power its chair lifts. Instead, it will purchase from Boulder-based Renewable Choice Energy renewable-energy credits equal to the amount of electricity it uses.

there's a missing ingredient that has slowed development of wind power and other renewable energy sources in Colorado and the West: adequate transmission lines. Where the wind tends to blow, there is little population that would be served by wind energy. To move the wind power to populous metro areas requires steep investments by wind-farm developers. High-power lines can cost from $300,000 to $1 million per mile to build.

Colorado has emerged as one of the leading states in developing renewable energy resources, according to a Pew Center on Global Climate Change study.

PPM Energy, ScottishPower's competitive U.S. energy business, will begin construction this fall on the 75-megawatt (MW) Twin Buttes Wind Power Project in southeastern Colorado. And in Oregon, PPM just announced construction of the 100 MW Leaning Juniper Wind Project near Arlington, which is expected to be commercially operational later this year.

Construction is scheduled for completion by the end of 2007.

The increase is necessary because the Windsource program was designed for customers who want to pay premium rates in order to promote green energy, Stutz said.

The governor also notified lawmakers Monday he was letting a bill aimed at boosting wind-energy production in Colorado become law without his signature. House Bill 1275, sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, changes the method of taxing wind farms from a business tax based on the value of equipment that depreciates over time to a production tax that levelizes the revenue stream to counties over a 20-year period.

A new coal-burning electricity plant is under construction in Pueblo. To the north, in Frederick, work is under way on another electricity plant, this one fired by natural gas. Solar and wind farms are cropping up in Lamar, Peetz, Grover and the San Luis Valley.

DENVER - A bill changing the method of taxing wind turbines in an attempt to lure more windfarm companies to northeastern Colorado is expected to reach the governor's desk in the next few days.

Prowers County Assessor, Andy Wyatt, got an unpleasant surprise on Thursday, March 30, when he read the Pueblo Chieftain story headlined, "Lawmaker challenges wind farm legislation." According to the story, an amendment tacked onto House Bill 1275, "at the behest of Prowers County Assessor Andy Wyatt" would potentially make the bill unconstitutional.

DENVER -- Concerns about the constitutionality of a bill aimed at luring wind farms to northeast Colorado forced Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, to postpone a final Senate vote Thursday.

PEETZ - The blades of 40 enormous new turbines are now turning steadily in the winds east of here.