Jerry McRae didn't mince words when talking about a high-voltage transmission line that will cross his land near here. "You're going to have a hell of a time building a power line in this community," McRae said. ...Construction on the line is scheduled to begin in March. "It can't be built without eminent domain in this community right now," McRae warned right off the bat.

The U.S. Department of Energy has approved a $180 million high-voltage electrical line that's expected to spur more wind farm development between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alberta. The decision to issue a presidential permit for the project is published today in the Federal Register, said Tony Como, the DOE's director of permitting and siting. ...Montana's transmission capacity is about all used up and three wind farm developers that have purchased the primary capacity on the line have snatched up all of the available space on the MATL line.

An Irish wind power company with offices in Great Falls has outlined a new technology that could make wind energy more marketable: "compressed air" power plants. Keith McGrane, head of offshore energy and electricity storage for Gaelectric, said the compressed-air plant offers a way to use cheap wind power at night and then reproduce additional power in the day, to fill in the inevitable gaps when the wind isn't blowing.

Potential wind-farm development was the overriding reason why the state Department of Environmental Quality approved the proposed high-voltage power line that would tread its way across eastern Teton County between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alta. Montana Alberta Tie Ltd., or MATL, with offices in Calgary, Alta., submitted an application under DEQ's Major Facility Siting Act program on Dec. 1, 2005, providing a variety of reasons why its proposed privately-owned, 230-kilovolt transmission line would benefit the region. ... Aggrieved parties who believe they are adversely affected by DEQ's decision have 30 days to appeal.

The state of Montana has given the green light to a high-voltage transmission line that could trigger millions in green energy production in northcentral Montana. The 600 megawatts of north-south capacity on the Montana Alberta Tie Line has been sold to NaturEner, Invenergy and Wind Hunter. ...Construction won't begin for six months because it will take that long to manufacture the steel poles, which are 90 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter, van't Hof said. Part of the line will also have wooden H-frame poles.

In March, Fuhrländer AG proposed locating a $25 million wind turbine assembly plant in Silver Bow County's business development district. The company has now finished its initial proposal and continues to move ahead with groundbreaking plans for next spring. ...the company had been waiting for the Renewable Energy Bill to pass Congress, which it did this summer. The bill included more than $17 billion in tax credits for renewable energy companies and helped make the Butte plant "economically feasible," said Smitham.

Financing prospects for large-scale energy projects in Montana have dimmed with the crisis on Wall Street, but some that already are under way should proceed as planned, state officials and developers said. ...Gov. Brian Schweitzer told The Associated Press in a recent interview that several companies assured him their projects will not be derailed by the downturn. Still, he cautioned that the recent heady pace of development could end if the economic outlook remains grim and banks stay reluctant — or unable — to make large loans.

Montana has plenty of wind to make energy: It's everything else that we're missing. ...Mother Nature has done her job, but others have work to do, he said. Landowners need better data on how much wind blows for how long. The region needs more and better power lines to distribute the electricity produced. Power buyers need to be lined up, and the power sellers need to be ready to supply expensive spot-market electricity to their buyers on days the wind doesn't blow.

The first phase of a $500 million wind farm south of Ethridge and 85 miles north of Great Falls is finished and on the electrical grid, with the power bound for California. ...The wind farm connected to the transmission system Wednesday, said Claudia Rapkoch of NorthWestern Energy, which owns the transmission line that will ship the power to market. "Why not produce it in the state of Montana?" Rapkoch said. San Diego Gas and Electric, an investor-owned utility in California serving 1.2 million customers, is buying the electricity.

In the works for three years, a high-voltage transmission line connecting Montana's electric grid to Alberta's through eastern Teton County is on the last leg of a footrace slowed by intense scrutiny from landowners in the proposed right of way and from the regulatory agencies required to vet the project. The final environmental impact statement for the Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. 230-kilovolt power line was published in the Federal Register on Oct. 3. ... The power line would make possible wind energy development totaling 600 megawatts, 300 mw in each direction, from Great Falls to Lethbridge, Alta.

No matter where NorthWestern Energy Corp. proposes building a high power line through southwest Montana, it's an unpopular sell to people whose homes and land it would pass by. "Everybody else said no so you came through us," John Pullman, a landowner in the Boulder Valley, said during a meeting at the Cardwell School Monday that drew more than 45 people. That pretty much summed up the sentiment of landowners who are miffed that NorthWestern would propose a major power line through an agricultural valley. NorthWestern is planning to build a 500-kilovolt power line from Townsend to Twin Falls, Idaho, and has proposed three potential routes.

The state Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Department of Energy on Monday released a summary of a long-awaited final environmental impact statement for the 203-mile Montana Alberta Tie Line, which outlines the preferred alternative and several others. Final decisions on the project by both agencies could follow in a month, regulators said. ..."We basically sat down with the director and went through this segment by segment, trying to pick which would best serve MATL's needs as well as the landowners," Hallsten said. "It's turned out to be a balancing act." The agency says it selected the preferred alternative because it provides the best balance between avoiding impacts to farmers while not making the project too expensive for the developer.

Aside from agreeing that Montanans deserve affordable energy, local candidates for the state Public Service Commission disagreed about everything else during a Billings debate Wednesday. Incumbent Brad Molnar, R-Laurel, and challenger Ron Tussing, D-Billings, debated the merits of wind energy ...Wind power is intermittent; it comes and goes with the blowing wind. When the wind dies down, utilities have to have a backup source of energy available, the commissioner said. Molnar said the backup energy has to be bought on the spot market, where rates are most expensive.

Florida-based FPL Energy, the nation's largest wind farm owner, is prospecting along Montana's wind-swept Rocky Mountain Front as it pursues an aggressive goal nationally of adding 10,000 megawatts of additional wind power to its portfolio. "The short answer is, 'Yes, we are interested,' but it's going to be a long time before we would be in a position to be able to put anything on the ground, if ever," said FPL Energy spokesman Steven Stengel, of Juno Beach, Fla. James Carney, an FPL Energy land specialist based in Bend, Ore., visited the area a month ago, when he met with landowners and elected officials in Teton and Pondera counties to gauge interest and look for available land.

The current production tax credit provides a 10-year, 2.1 cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax write-off. But the report argues a key difficulty facing prospective community wind developers is their lack of a large enough tax liability to take full advantage of the federal tax incentives, which makes it financially difficult to complete projects. Larger wind developers, meanwhile, used the tax break to shatter an industry record in 2007 by installing 5,244 megawatts of wind generation nationwide.

NorthWestern Energy said it is seeking permits for a natural-gas-fired power plant near Anaconda, Mont., and hopes to start building the plant next year. ...The $206 million plant would be used to stabilize the electric grid and allow NorthWestern to take more wind power onto the system, company officials said. ...PSC Commissioner Ken Toole welcomed the permit application. He said such a plant could allow for the production of more wind power plants, which require so-called "firming" power to fill in the gaps when winds are not blowing.

According to Dave Ryan, president of the Montana Renewable Energy Association, Montana is ranked No. 5 among the states in terms of wind resources. "There is pretty good potential here," said Ryan, "particularly the down slope winds along the front range." Ryan stresses that the secret to tapping wind energy, as with real estate, is location, location, location. "Wind is very microclimate-sensitive, which means it can vary greatly from one area to another. Just because your neighbor has a productive wind turbine is no guarantee that you will."

The groundbreaking for a multi-million dollar wind turbine manufacturing facility in Butte planned for this fall is now set for spring 2009. [The] Governor's Office of Economic Development said the project is definitely moving forward, however an overwhelming demand for turbines elsewhere has delayed the project temporarily. "Right now they are opening a brand new plant in Germany. Of course they are not a huge company, as a result of that, their focus is on that,getting that done successfully and being able to take care of three or four things going on.

Montana Alberta Tie Ltd. was granted a permit from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board on Tuesday to construct the Canadian stretch of a 215-mile electrical transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge. The line is expected to spur wind farm construction in northcentral Montana. The EUB permit was the final OK needed for the Alberta portion, which makes up about 40 percent of the entire project, said Bob Curran, an EUB spokesman. Canada's National Energy Board previously approved the plan. "It means they can construct and operate the line now," Curran said.