After about two hours of listening to his neighbors object to his plans to erect a wind turbine on his property, village resident Paul LaBarbera decided not to do it. With an ordinance allowing wind turbines - an alternative energy source - in town approved by the Village Board in March, LaBarbera was at the village's planning and zoning committee meeting Tuesday night seeking support for a special use permit to erect the turbine on his Prairie View Estates property.

A gathering of people in Jacksboro on Monday might go down in the books as an early skirmish in a looming battle that could pit neighbor against neighbor and play out in courtrooms across the region. The issue is wind.

Offshore work on a £325m wind farm in the Solway Firth has been delayed by the late arrival of a jack-up barge. E.ON UK - which is behind the Robin Rigg project - has confirmed that work will have to start later this year rather than in the summer as planned. The barge, named the Lisa A, needs to undergo vital maintenance work.

Those headed to West Virginia’s capital city this week for hearings on the Liberty Gap wind utility proposal came home early. The state’s Public Service Commission was set to begin evidentiary hearings Tuesday morning on Liberty Gap LLC’s request for a permit to build a 50-megawatt wind energy facility on Jack Mountain in Pendleton County. But at the last minute, the company realized it had not published public notices about the hearings as required by the PSC. When it realized the error, Liberty Gap asked the PSC to postpone the hearings 30 days, and move the statutory deadline for the PSC’s final decision back 30 days as well. The PSC denied that motion, and cancelled the evidentiary portion of the hearings, though it did receive limited public comment on the project Tuesday, and agreed to hear argument from all parties involved about how to proceed.

Residents gave town officials the green light Thursday, Nov. 6, at a special meeting, to get more information from companies interested in erecting wind turbines in Jackson. The vote came after extensive discussion and a number of changes to the way the authorization was worded. The special town meeting was prompted by announcements a month earlier that two different companies were interested in putting wind turbines on town-owned land as part of a larger project that would stretch across three communities.

Two weeks ago, Jackson selectmen voted to extend a six-month moratorium on issuing permits for industrial wind developments, but the vote was nullified when town officials found that a public hearing on the issue was required. On June 30, the board convened a pro forma public hearing and made the extension official.

Residents this weekend approved a controversial wind turbine ordinance that would impose strict regulations on industrial wind power developments. Among other things, the ordinance - written by the planning board and the wind energy subcommittee - stipulates that any 400-foot-tall turbines erected must be at least a mile from any houses.

An idea to install about 150 wind turbines in the city had Hamilton politicians blowing more than hot air in the council chambers last week. Cleanfield Energy Corp. is proposing to place the 350 pound, three-feet vertical-axis wind turbines on businesses and homes, including Copps Coliseum and McMaster Innovation Park beginning this fall. About 30 of these egg-beater style machines will be up and running by the end of this year, said Tony Verrelli, president and chief executive office of Cleanfield Energy Corp.

The Board of Selectmen has decided to extend the town's moratorium on wind-energy projects for another six months. The board granted the 180-day extension Tuesday night after meeting with members of the planning board and the subcommittee that drafted a proposed ordinance governing wind-energy applications. The extension is aimed at giving the planning board the necessary time to review the proposed wind-power ordinance.

The town's Board of Selectmen will meet tonight to consider extending a moratorium on wind energy projects for another six months. Town Clerk Brenda Dennison said the board believes it needs additional time as it weighs a proposed ordinance regulating wind energy projects as well as two petitions dealing with the process. The moratorium was put in place last January and was extended for 180 days in June.

Debbie Ludden says she and her fellow planning board members spent more than a year researching and developing the wind power ordinance that Jackson residents will vote on. "All of our research was done on the health safety and welfare of the townspeople and we didn't give any consideration into how much money anyone was going to make and how much money the town was going to make," Ludden said.

Voters in Jackson Saturday approved a wind development ordinance. The vote was 111 Yes, 75 No. The proposed ordinance includes regulations for noise levels and setbacks from property lines.

Rate stability in an increasingly volatile fossil-fuel market and an emphasis on environmental issues will be hallmarks of James Larocca's chairmanship of the Long Island Power Authority, he said yesterday. ...He also criticized LIPA's recent history of limited transparency, calling its failure to properly disclose the costs of a proposed off-shore wind farm and the Caithness power plant in Yaphank mistakes. "We're a public utility," Larocca said. "People shouldn't have to beat us with a stick to find out the cost of a project." LIPA still hasn't disclosed the cost of Caithness. And though supportive of renewable energy, Larocca said he'll keep a keen eye on the costs and the real return before approving them. "All that glitters is not green," he said.

North Dakota may see the construction of more wind turbines - possibly some in the Jamestown area. Terry Wanzek, who farms west of Jamestown, said he signed an easement contract with FPL Energy for a possible wind farm on his property. "We are looking at additional opportunities in the state," said Steve Stengel, spokesman for FPL Energy, the firm that constructed the wind farm west of Edgeley and is in the process of building a wind farm near Langdon and expanding the wind farm in Oliver County.

At Tuesday's Board of Education meeting at Jefferson Middle School, school officials decided to opt out of Section 487 of the Real Property Tax Law after hearing from Bill Daly and Rich Dixon of the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency. The law makes the installation of energy improvement systems - solar power, windmills - exempt from taxes. By opting out, the district is placing the IDA in charge of negotiations regarding alternative energy should a company wants to develop wind energy in the county, Daly said. The IDA will be responsible for negotiating tax agreements for the county, city, towns and school districts.

If Jamestown goes forward with the wind turbine project Murphy fears it could have the same fate as nearby Portsmouth which now is left with a half a million dollar bill on their wind mill project.

By far the biggest problem in attracting investors is the uncertainty surrounding the details of the government's energy policy, set to be unveiled sometime this summer. Although the government will force electricity companies to buy power from alternative-energy providers, for how many years and at what price isn't yet known. That lack of detail has muted investor interest.

As exciting as alternatives may seem, the answer to Japan's future energy needs is likely to come from more traditional sources, according to Ivo Bozon, a leading energy analyst at McKinsey & Company. "It takes a long-term commitment to get the scale necessary in renewables to produce meaningful amounts of the power ...There are physical limits on renewable energy."

A surge in wind power supply has raised concerns among regional utilities that a greater dependence on natural forces may destabilize their power grids.

Japan's wind power industry installed 183 megawatts (MW) of capacity in the year ended in March, 2009, down 1.3 percent from a year earlier, a government linked research unit said in a report on Tuesday. Tighter regulations on wind turbines have restricted construction in the past two years.