However, wind energy is not the panacea that its proponents claim. The true costs of wind energy include more than the upfront capital of $3 million per windmill, leases and noise pollution. The fact is the wind does not blow continuously. Consequently, redundant generating capacity must come from sources such as coal, oil and natural gas. The costs of operating and maintaining these plants at less than capacity must be considered.

The first issue is the high cost of wind power, which is about 2.5 to three times the cost of coal-generated power. Large wind-power projects exist only because of large government subsidies. Otherwise, wind power would be restricted to a few applications where the physical isolation of the electricity demand precludes extending the transmission network to the site. The other major issue is the intermittency of wind power. Even on the best of sites, wind turbines generate usable power less than 30 percent of the time ...T. Boone Pickens' claim that wind power will reduce the need for natural gas in electricity generation is spectacularly wrong.

"The next year is crucial - that's when we'll know if this will work for us or not," said county Prosecutor Bill Mason, head of a local task force pushing the proposal. "But we also understand that there's always going to be some skepticism, so we want to give the public a realistic view they can support." Wind-power skeptics have questioned whether anchoring turbines in fresh water would be particularly difficult because of Lake Erie's winter ice. Some environmentalists have decried siting wind turbines in migratory bird lanes.

Twenty percent of our electricity from wind requires 10,000-plus turbines on a land mass of 42,000 square miles. Spread evenly across Ohio, we'd see two to nine industrial turbines everywhere we looked. Twice the height of a large radio tower, their enormous blades cast disturbing repetitive flickering shadows across everything up to .75 miles away, and can be noisy enough to disturb sleep in hilly regions. Wind energy costs $2 million per megawatt (MW), and 20 percent of our state's electricity today would require over 20,000 MW of wind. That's a $40 billion dollar investment with no electricity when we need it most - on windless summer days. Do we want to foot the bill for this inefficiency?

Let's look at the reality, not the hype. Ohio and every other state east of the Mississippi that is not on the ocean is just barely on the ragged edge of acceptability for a few turbines in a few high places that are already lived on, farmed on and gazed at for their beauty. This is a railroad that needs to be sidetracked. Legislating 20 percent of our power from wind won't make it any more feasible; it will just make us throw our money at it until we cry uncle.

How comforting to learn that your County Board considers you an enemy. To learn it feels that it must protect itself from you. To learn that when it extends its arms it is to embrace outsiders whose only interest is to make a profit from your misery. To learn that "home seller" protection and "non-participating landowners" protection really means "County Board" protection.