The University of Illinois has canceled its plans to build wind turbines on campus, citing the university's "deteriorating fiscal condition." A contract for GE to build and deliver a 1.5-megawatt wind turbine for the South Farms was sent last week to the university from GE, but university officials did not sign it. Chancellor Richard Herman on Thursday notified GE and student leaders of the university's decision to halt the project.

Financially ailing Babcock and Brown, owners of Crescent Ridge II wind farm in Bureau County, asked the County Board this week to issue building permits before the project's decommissioning and site restoration is fully funded. The request is a departure from current county policy, which requires the exact opposite. Bureau County ESDA director Chris Donarski advised caution in considering the request.

At Tuesday's meeting of the Bureau County Board, Crescent Ridge 2 attorney Paul Scoma said the developers are having trouble getting their letter of credit/cash escrow in place before the conditional use permits expire for the proposed rural Tiskilwa wind farm. With the economy as it is, everyone is having trouble getting letters of credit, Scoma said. The developers also want the county to go ahead and issue the needed building permits for the project.

With the specter of a new series of wind turbine applications looming, the Woodford County Board will consider altering the permitting process for such developments at a special meeting today. ...The renewed discussion of wind farms - a particularly polarizing issue in Woodford County - comes as a previously approved project is expected to return to the board in a different form.

The Bureau County Board approved a 45-acre extension to the Bureau-Putnam enterprise zone at its meeting Tuesday night. ...Walnut Ridge LLC requested the extension to build a wind farm at that location.

When the Bureau County Board voted to exclude a certain type of wind turbine from consideration for seven Walnut Ridge sites, the company was understandably concerned. ...On Nov. 17, Suzlon issued a statement regarding the S88. According to the statement, the problem with the S88 near Buda was with the V2 version, which has since been replaced with the V3 version.

On Monday, Vermilion County Board members will get their first opportunity to discuss a new ordinance that will regulate the creation of wind turbines in Vermilion County. Several developers of wind turbine farms are considering building in the county, more specifically in the southwest, northwest and northern parts of Vermilion.

Village officials heard mixed opinions from residents Monday as they looked to gather information on potential regulations for wind turbines. Roughly 25 people gathered at Poplar Grove's Village Hall for a public hearing, which is mandatory before any ordinance can be adopted. The feelings of those who spoke were split between proponents and opponents of commercial wind farms.

Tuesday morning, county board chairman Dick Logan joined Railsplitter Wind Farm and Horizon Wind Energy officials at the official groundbreaking for the project that will place the first wind turbines in Logan County. The progressive date was accomplished when a special adjourned county board meeting was called on Oct. 30 in order to get the board's approval of the final document, a decommissioning agreement, that finished meeting all the county's requirements for the construction of the wind farm.

A public hearing was packed Tuesday night with people who wanted to tell the Lee Village Board exactly why they are for or against a proposed wind farm along the DeKalb-Lee county line. The project would consist of 133 electricity-generating wind turbines owned by Florida-based FPL Energy. All of the proposed turbines are in unincorporated areas, but a state law passed last year allows municipalities to exercise zoning authority on wind turbines within one and a half miles of their corporate boundaries.

The Princeton City Council has approved an ordinance to expand the Bureau/Putnam Area Enterprise Zone to include the proposed Walnut Ridge wind farm in northwest Bureau County. The city council took its action at Monday night's meeting in city hall.

Vermilion County officials forged ahead Monday with their first discussion on how to regulate the potential construction of wind-turbine farms in the absence of a countywide zoning system. Several wind-turbine companies are seriously considering the county for development of alternative-energy farms, but the county is different from other counties where wind farms already exist because Vermilion has no zoning. ...Attorney and Vermilion County Board Member Bill Donahue, D-District 7, has been working on developing an ordinance that would contain the same type of regulations that would be developed through a regular zoning process in other counties.

Trucks hauling giant wind turbines continue to trek through Lincoln - and some residents say they continue to cause problems. One such truck got off course Thursday and ended up stuck at the intersection of Keokuk and Logan streets, said Lincoln resident Morris Trent, who lives nearby. ...None of the turbines going through Lincoln are bound for the RailSplitter Wind Farm in northern Logan and southern Tazewell counties, according to that wind farm's project supervisor.

Horizon has also started work on access roads for construction and maintenance of the wind towers, Parker said. Although these roads are private, landowners who live within the wind farm property can use them for their farming operations, he said. Construction is progressing on electrical substations, overhead lines and underground cables, Parker said, and the erection of the wind turbines has also begun. Twenty-five foundations have been completed, he said, and two base sections have been installed on three towers.

Vermilion County economic development officials are in talks with at least four companies interested in building wind-turbine farms in Vermilion County. The county has no zoning system, but county board officials are taking steps to regulate the construction and operation of the alternative-energy farms by writing an ordinance. ...Haugen said landowners need to be protected, and the companies need to know the expectations before making major investments.

Bureau County officials want to try and ensure that a wind turbine failure like what was experienced on a farm southwest of Wyanet last month doesn't happen again. The Bureau County Board this week voted not to allow future wind farm developments to use the S88 type turbines produced by India-based Suzlon Energy. "I am personally making the motion (to exclude Suzlon) due to the uncertainty of their turbines," ESDA and zoning committee Chairman Bill Bennett.

Residents hoping to sound off on wind turbine laws Monday were told to come back in two weeks. The village of Poplar Grove delayed a public hearing on potential zoning-law changes for wind towers because the legal notice of the meeting was published incorrectly, village President Roger Day said. ...village officials say they want to protect residents who may not want a wind farm near their homes or fear it could lower their property values.

The Iroquois County Planning and Zoning Committee voted unanimously to recommended to the full board a wind farm request. Friday morning the committee heard from Vision Energy representatives Mark Gerson and Turner Hunt as they asked for the conditional use to build 47 wind towers in Milks Grove Township.

The Ford County Regional Planning Commission will meet at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Tri-Point school building in Kempton to consider the applications for the energy farm, K4 Wind Farm. Towers are proposed to be dotted across 32,000 acres stretching from within Kankakee County, about two miles north of Chebanse, to the Kempton-Emington area, about five miles into eastern Livingston County. The Ford County Zoning Board has given a unanimous recommendation to the application in that county in which 97 turbines are proposed.

In August, Union Ridge Wind, opponents of the Railsplitter Wind Farm, did file a court appeal on the conditional use of agriculture-zoned land for the construction of a wind farm. The Logan County Board granted the conditional use to Railsplitter Wind Farm and Horizon Wind Energy in July. The appeal would need to be dropped before the county would sign one of the agreements necessary for meeting the conditions set forth by the Logan County Zoning Board of Appeals and accepted by the county board in July.