Taking the wrong route to the right destination can ruin a trip. Which is why Washington voters should be wary of Initiative 937, a ballot measure that purports to steer the state toward a cleaner, cheaper power future based on wind. Ostensibly, the initiative is about all kinds of renewable energy, from biomass to ocean tides, but even advocates of I-937 concede it is primarily about wind.

In the 16th- century church, those who were long on cash but short on righteous living could balance the equation by buying indulgences, representing a sort of absolution for sinful behavior. Indulgences may have disappeared about the time of Martin Luther, but they seem to be alive and thriving in a more contemporary religion — the Church of the Green. Wells Fargo & Co. announced this week that it is buying renewable energy certificates for 550 million kilowatt-hours of wind energy a year for three years. The bank said the acquisition makes it the “largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the United States,” but it’s hardly the first. Everyone from the National Farmers Union to Audubon New York to Whole Foods to Starbucks to FedEx Kinko’s has done similar deals. And how much of this “clean” wind-generated electricity will Wells Fargo be taking for its own branches, offices and facilities, to supplant supposedly “dirty” power it’s getting from other sources? Not a single watt.

But in this initiative, there’s clean energy and then there’s clean energy. Pushed by several environmental groups, I-937 excludes hydropower — made eminently renewable by spring rains and winter snowpack that melts and turns dam turbines on rivers across the state — as a qualifying source of power...... Let’s be honest. Washington has one of the cleanest energy profiles in the nation when it comes to green-house gas emissions from electricity generation. The state ranks third-best in pounds of carbon dioxide produced per kilowatt hour, just behind Idaho and Vermont, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2002, the most recent year figures are available, Washington’s rate was half of California’s, one-fifth of Massachusetts’ and less than one-third of New York’s. Thank the state’s reliance on hydropower. At least 60 percent of Washington’s juice comes from dams.

This initiative is really about wind power. The initiative counts other renewables, such as biomass, solar and tidal power, but other approaches are less advanced. Bizarrely, I-937 leaves out a biggie. Hydropower — that hallmark renewable of the Northwest — doesn't count, except for efficiencies made at qualifying utility dams since 1999. That's right: Hydropower doesn't count as renewable energy in the initiative.

While the Audubon Society supports wind power, the group understandingly is lobbying state and local governments to require regional environmental impact studies before permitting proposed wind energy projects. In addition, Audubon wants each state to do a statewide survey to identify potential wind farm sites and overlay those sites with migratory bird pathways and bird and bat habitats.

Beware, Washington voters — wind power is too good to be true. Approving the November ballot initiative [I-937] won't solve a thing. The current hype over wind power's credentials as a "clean and renewable" source of energy is belied by wind power's Achilles' heel — its intermittency. This fundamental flaw limits both wind energy's capacity value and its impact on emissions.

Why advocates want the return to the power of wind turning a blade is part environmental commitment and part attraction of the wind-farm industry to substantial federal subsidies. This is both the age of sail and the age of sale.

That leaves wind, solar, biomass and tidal power. While those technologies show promise and should be developed, any discussion about energy must include three simple words: location, tradeoff and costs.

It’s not a matter of what party is right, or more passionate, but whether the projects are in the right place. The Kittitas County commissioners decided the Kittitas Wind Power Project, as proposed by Horizon, is not compatible with surrounding land uses.

"Renewable power mandates merely accentuate the inefficiency and cost premiums attached to so-called renewable power sources," said Jerry Taylor, director of natural resource studies at the Cato Institute. "If renewable power saved consumers money, created jobs, or carried any of the other economic benefits so frequently claimed by environmental activists, then government would not have to pass a law to force power companies to purchase it or consumers to buy it."

That windmills retain a mystical popularity among its Northwest supporters, is truly a triumph of hope over substance, not to mention unawareness of hidden costs and poor performance data. There is a huge amount of information now available regarding wind energy from around the United States and Europe. It’s not good news.