The land affected by this monumentally inappropriate industrial development is set to dominate and face the central heart of Sutherland. ...This is not just a Brora-Helmsdale issue but one that must be for the individual and is now of national and international importance. Our complex peatlands and wildlands are among some of the finest tracts of singular landscape beauty and rare habitat within Europe. All this is meaningless to the developers and their contractors, whose careless handiwork is already in monumental flailing form, demeaning and dominating sites around the Highlands.

For a company that hopes to start construction on Virginia's first wind energy plant in the next few months, Highland New Wind Development appears to be dragging its heels. Recently, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation said it had not heard from the developer after requesting more information in its initial review. Last week, Virginia's Department of Historic Resources said it still awaits a view shed study, among other things, before it can offer recommendations for softening the impact of 400-foottowers on Highland County's tallest summit. In the last three months, updates from the developer to Highland's supervisors haven't yielded much new information. HNWD says it's still seeking investors, has not finalized a power purchase agreement, and cannot complete a final site plan because securing turbine equipment has become harder to do.

Death, destruction and insomnia are marketed as "renewable electricity" to urban consumers. The federal production tax credit drives it all, with additional subsidies on national forest, where no property taxes are levied. ...We'd have to replace nearly every tree with a turbine to offset even a small amount of coal's impact, devastating the forest in the process. Without a national policy on energy conservation and efficiency, we're whistling in the wind anyway.

Wind farm opponents will suggest Mighty River's motives for asking Mr Mallard to take the decision away from the PNCC are a sinister ploy to subvert the democratic process. However, the company is more likely motivated by pragmatism. If the decision is left with the PNCC and the wind farm is approved, it will almost certainly be appealed to the Environment Court anyway. Mighty River would no doubt prefer to cut to the chase. The decision-making process shouldn't be unnecessarily convoluted, but the people of Palmerston North must be given the chance to have their say and, more importantly, they must be listened to.

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.

It's probably too much to expect, but, following the country's latest landslide or bog overflow, county councils and An Bord Pleanála should have more regard for people living in susceptible areas. Despite the concerns of people in Derrybrien, Co Galway, regarding a wind farm in their area, planning permission was granted for it by An Bord Pleanála. Residents' worst fears came to pass when a landslide caused devastation in 2003. Fast forward to August, 2008, and a similar landslide involving 20 acres of bog in the Kielduff/Lyrecrompane area of Co Kerry. ...The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC), which aims to save Irish boglands, is calling on the Government to come up with a policy on the location of wind farms in sensitive habitats.

Wind turbines are the latest popular "answer" to our country's energy problems with talk of three-bladed monsters covering vast areas from Texas northward. T. Boone Pickens is spending millions to promote his vision of generating 20 percent of our energy from wind power (although he refuses to install any of the turbines on his own 120,000 acre ranch). ...The variability of wind power makes it very difficult for power companies to integrate wind power into their grid and still maintain the stable power supply required to avoid user-operating problems. This is a particularly severe problem if wind power is a large portion of the total power output.

Wind power has been proposed in letters to the editor as a good option to LNG, but there is no silver bullet solution to our energy needs, as far as I can see. Because wind power depends on the wind, it is an unreliable source of electrical power. Wind power must be backed up by a more reliable conventional power source. That power source is LNG. As wind power develops out, more LNG power plants will be built to back up wind power. Wind power cannot replace LNG; it will, instead, make LNG more necessary.

A few months ago, the Dallas area experienced rolling brownouts when a front moved through and the wind died unexpectedly, causing a large amount of wind-generated power to die out. Power plants had to scramble to get their gas- and coal-fired generators up to speed to offset the lost power when the wind generators dropped off. That's a problem because generating stations and their equipment do not take drastic changes in load easily, especially the big coal-fired plants. Equipment has to warm up, and keeping them "on standby" requires energy, in addition to "wear and tear."

Shame on you, Gov. Butch Otter, and every other representative for Idaho (including the Fish and Game) who is letting our Fish and Game regional supervisor take this in the backside and then deny that you've even done anything wrong. Don't you advertise for people to move to Idaho because of its wildlife? Why do you, governor, do commercials with the backdrop of eagles, wildlife and green pastures? And why does the governor's office need to OK a government employee's opinion to the editor? This isn't just Fish and Game's problem.

Many thanks for the excellent lead story in the Monday, Aug. 18, issue of the Times concerning wind-farm corruption which affirmed what many suspected. But I fear the town of Clayton's nearsighted board members will overlook the article. They see only immediate profit from turbines and refuse to recognize long-term concerns about severe environmental, ecological and economic damage.

Wind turbines sound great when you first hear about them. Who is against renewable energy? Farmers who struggle to make a living are eying up the $9,000 they are to receive per turbine per year. Ten turbines is a retirement income of $90,000! Who would blame the farmers! And the Bonnechere and Madawaska township councils can see much-needed tax dollars flowing in. But there are problems with the whole scheme. ...Let's make sure that if we choose to install hundreds of 400- foot high turbines in our heritage countryside we do so from informed choice.

For now, wind power's triumphant march in the U.S. can count on another legal smackdown of "NIMBYism," after a Texas appeals court yesterday dismissed a suit by landowners upset with a big wind farm built by FPL Energy. Landowners decried the turbines' noise and their spoiled sunsets-which the court agreed was a pity-but the appeals court couldn't find grounds to rule against the power company. ...Congress is meant to reconvene next month for yet another attempt at renewing clean-energy tax credits. But does it have any recipe to make clean energy more appealing to the folks who hate it?

But had Bloomberg done the math, he'd know that even if Manhattan were topped by a solid block of windmills, they wouldn't come close to meeting the city's power consumption. Wind power has its place as a power source, but it's not a place at the top. It provides less than one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. electricity because it costs more to produce. The wind may be free, but the equipment is expensive. The costs are even dearer if you follow Bloomberg's other suggestion, namely floating windmills in the middle of the ocean. How many windmills does it take to meet the power needs of a typical city, much less New York City?

I was disappointed and alarmed that Dave was demoted by the department in a purely political move. Dave and his staff came under heat when the Magic Valley office opposed Cove Springs in Blaine County because of its negative wildlife impacts. In fact, Dave's job was threatened then when the Cove developers complained to the governor and his Fish and Game supervisors. This summer, Dave spoke out about the wildlife impacts of a large proposed wind farm and that brought the hatchet down, despite his having worked on hundreds of projects which were successfully negotiated.

Last month, the Magic Valley's regional Fish and Game supervisor, David Parrish, spoke his mind about how a proposed wind farm might injure wildlife. Parrish got demoted and transferred to Fish and Game's headquarters in Boise. But the real victim is the political independence of Idaho's wildlife agency and its staffers. ...He ran afoul of three Republican lawmakers - Rep. Stephen Hartgen of Twin Falls, who worked as a consultant on the project; Sen. Bert Brackett of Rogerson, whose nephew owns land on which part of the wind farm could be built; and Assistant House Republican Leader Scott Bedke of Oakley -- who complained to Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.

As chairman of Responsible Citizens for Responsible Energy (RCRE), our stand has never been to ban wind turbines from Carteret County. As our name implies, our main goal is to obtain responsible siting in the pending ordinance. It is our elected and appointed officials responsibility to protect the health, safety and welfare of the residents of Carteret County by adopting an ordinance which mandates a safe and responsible setback of wind turbines from neighboring homes and properties.

The destruction of lush forests full of life will only encourage global warming. The state's new Carbon Management Advisory Group (CMAG) Report notes that loss of forests to development causes a one-time surge of greenhouse gas emissions and eliminates the forests' future ability to sequester carbon. ...The wind industries target small rural areas ...Maybe it would be more beneficial to install them in every mall parking lot and big cities where there are no trees, plenty of noise to drown them out, and where the people that really want them can see them and enjoy them as much as they think they do.

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.

It is clear the majority of commissioners court is in favor of allowing the wind farm to go up in northern Young County. From a government perspective, the choice is easy. By agreeing to waive some of the property tax for 10 years, commissioners will see the income to the county rise by between $200,000 and $400,000 each year. ...While wind farms are often beneficial to property owners who lease their land, they are frequently hated by other land owners. The bottom line is putting 40 or 50 wind generators up in Young County will drastically change the scenic view many people have become accustomed to. If you want an example of what you may see, just drive down Highway 16 South toward Possum Kingdom Lake and look at the windmills sitting south of Bryson.