Peter Mastic, who formerly headed a Minneapolis wind development firm that worked on the project, said in an interview Friday that he is the sole employee and owner of New Era Wind Farm. Mastic said he intends to pursue the project with the help of a local advisory board .

The Carson County Commissioner's Court today approved a reinvestment zone for Mesa Power. Mesa Power, L.P., had requested that the northeast corner of the county be designated a reinvestment zone for alternative or renewable energy and power facilities eligible for tax abatement under the state's tax code.

Falling energy prices have forced billionaire oilman and investor T. Boone Pickens to trim spending on his renewable energy campaign and put his West Texas wind farm project on hold. When Pickens launched his plan this summer to boost the use of wind and natural gas to ease American dependence on foreign oil, gasoline prices were at a record $4.11 a gallon and oil prices were at $147 a barrel.

Sweetwater may not be the wind-energy capital for long. Pickens is in the process of building what could be the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. "We're going to build a 4,000-megawatt farm in Pampa, and we've already bought the turbines for the first 1,000 megawatts, and we'll start construction in the summer of 2010," Pickens said. "We've put together all the land for it. The landowners are ready; we're ready." Pickens landed at Avenger Field at 2:21 p.m. with a crowd of about 50 gathered to see the man with an estimated net worth of $3 billion.

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, saying the US' dependence on imported oil has reached the level of a national crisis, on July 7 unveiled a plan he said would cut imports by one-third within five to 10 years. The scope and scale of the plan is daunting, however, and some analysts have questioned its feasibility. ...In terms of cost alone, the "Pickens Plan" is a tall order. Pickens puts the price tag for building a series of wind farms that would stretch from North Dakota to the Texas Panhandle at $1trillion with another $200 billion for the power lines to transmit all that new wind power. From a generation point of view one obvious problem with the plan is scalability, said Art Holland, a director at Pace Global Energy Services. The average gas turbine is 600 MW to 800 MW. The average wind turbine is 2 MW. Even if the wind were blowing constantly it would take a tremendous number of wind turbines to replace an equivalent amount of gas-fired capacity.

After years of touting his "Pickens plan" for energy independence, and describing America as the "Saudi Arabia of wind," it appears billionaire energy mogul T. Boone Pickens may be wavering in his support of wind power. According to numerous US news outlets ...Pickens has sold off his entire stake in a long-delayed wind farm in Goodhue County, Minnesota.

A T. Boone Pickens-backed wind energy company is suing several Goodhue County landowners who backed out of leases for a proposed wind farm near Red Wing that has run into opposition from surrounding residents.

Falling prices for wind turbines will bring down the cost to build a new large wind farm in Columbia County, We Energies says. "Market conditions for the procurement of wind turbine equipment have changed considerably" since the utility first submitted its proposal to the state Public Service Commission, We Energies said in a filing with state regulators.

Usually an Ontario Municipal Board referral is made either by a proponent objecting to a delay in rezoning, or by groups of residents objecting to a municipal council's approval of a project. But there's a different kind of twist at Grand Valley. There, in East Luther Grand Valley Township, a small wind farm proponent has referred its objection to an Amaranth Township approval of two severances on the Amaranth side of the town line dividing the two municipalities. ...zoning for the wind farm was approved in ELGV two years ago. Now, late in the game, the nature of the severance indicates that the intention would be to turn them into residential lots. If so, residential structures could be too close to the turbines, There are agreed-to setbacks.

A group of farmers near Walkamin, on the Atherton Tableland, has come out against a proposed wind farm near their properties at Mt Emerald. Yesterday, about 10 growers met Tablelands Regional councillors and Dalrymple MP Shane Knuth at a property near the proposed site.

The granddaughter of General Dwight D Eisenhower, who led the allied forces to victory in the Second World War, has linked up with the National Trust for Scotland to see off a serious threat to the landscape around the castle that became his Scottish home. A wind farm company has submitted plans to build 15 turbines on the hill that overlooks Culzean Castle, the 18th-century Robert Adam masterpiece owned by the trust on the Ayrshire coast. Its magnificent top-floor apartment was given by its former owner to Eisenhower at the end of the war to thank the US general for the part he played in commanding Scottish troops and defeating the Nazi menace.

Wind turbines might offer good returns for farmers - but not if they are vulnerable to extremes of the weather they need to operate. Gale force winds can blow debris or grit into gears or even cause entire turbine masts to collapse.

...the island is in social, political and environmental turmoil, with communities and families divided over developments that will change fundamentally the landscape - and their lives. Some of the world's largest companies are dangling millions of pounds and economic revival in front of the islanders in return for making Lewis the epicentre of European wind power.

Without the turbines operating, the district would pay about $50,500 for electricity at the elementary school per year. Last year, the district saved $9,563 by running the wind turbines. However, because the district replaced the set of blades on the front turbine last year after the 2008 blade loss, the district ended up spending more money on the repair than what the turbines saved - about $3,000 to $4,000 more.

RESIDENTS came out in force this week to object to plans to build the North East's most powerful wind farm near North Charlton. Most of the 180 people who packed into the Northumberland Hall on Tuesday night voted to oppose npower renewables' 18-turbine plan for Middlemoor.

Britain's only listed wind turbine manufacturer today revealed it could be taken over by the end of the year. ..."Based on transaction size and structure, the new capital provider could range from owning a substantial minority position to acquiring the entire company.

WASHINGTON - The perils of climate change are attracting much attention these days, with a popular award-winning movie on the subject, a United Nations panel emphasizing the dangers and widespread agreement among scientists that global warming presents a potentially catastrophic threat. The concern has prompted a flurry of legislative activity on Capitol Hill, with four major bills, soon to be five, vying for support and votes, and some measure appearing likely to pass. But it remains unclear how strong it will be, how far lawmakers are willing to go in restricting U.S. industry, and whether President Bush will veto a bill in any case. The documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" spearheaded by former Vice President Al Gore focused the nation's attention more clearly on the issue, especially after it won two Oscars last month, but it is not the only catalyst. In the last month, a United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a study determining that the world's temperature is rising and declaring with 90 percent certainty that human activity is the cause. Nearly a dozen energy companies have joined with leading environmental groups to form the United States Climate Action Partnership, or USCAP, and have begun lobbying the federal government to institute strict standards for emissions reduction. Meanwhile, in the absence of binding national standards, many states, on their own or in regional consortia, have adopted laws to regulate emissions. Individual cities have even imposed such regulations.

A steady Lake Michigan wind blows through Christmas trees and asparagus on Gerald Greiner's farm. He might as well spit into it. The fourth-generation farmer is among three dozen in western Oceana County who had hoped to start harvesting the wind soon, turning it into a cash crop. They signed leases with a Lowell developer for what would have been Michigan's first energy-creating wind farm, with 90 huge, white turbines - part of a national campaign to fight global warming. "We'd see one just over the top of that hill," said Greiner, 81, pointing out the back window of his ranch home. But some neighbors didn't like the idea, and neither did the local planning commission, which questioned the benefits of wind power and the impact on property values. It's not clear what will happen to the project.

LONDON (AFX) - Talisman Energy (UK) Ltd, a wholly-owned unit of Talisman Energy Inc, said it has received UK government approval for the development of a deepwater wind farm demonstration and research project adjacent to its Beatrice oilfield, 25 kilometres off the east coast of Scotland.

"By being 25 miles offshore it doesn’t have any visual impact and the wind is steadier there," he added.