As more wind power projects are proposed for Maine, the idea of a standardized community benefits package makes increasing sense. Rather than have every little town try to reinvent the wheel and negotiate a good deal for itself from wind developers, a base package would make life easier for volunteer boards and municipalities with small legal budgets. Such packages shouldn't necessarily stop at town lines, however.

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 power does not respond to demand. It may or may not be there when needed.... We will therefore need as much other electricity sources with wind as we would without.... It is not just unnecessary but offensive to entertain industrial-scale development of the ridgelines, with strobe lights and noise and ecological degradation that far surpasses anything now on the mountains, for such obvious nonsense.

The council would not have wasted $250,000 of taxpayers' money to save $1,629. The only reason the council approved the project was because of the claim of an 80 percent savings presented by Kennedy and Fry. Was their data false on purpose, to justify the windmill, or false by accident?

Even the wind costs too much on Long Island. The price tag is now at $697 million to build 40 massive turbines in the ocean off Jones Beach to provide only 140 megawatts of power, a fraction of what the area uses. Even though FPL Energy, the winning bidder for the project, would directly pay the construction costs, the company would recoup that money through the rates it charges the Long Island Power Authority. And LIPA ratepayers also would shell out at least another $100 million for cables and other costs to hook the generation into its system. Who pays the costs of dismantling the turbines and carting them away when their usefulness is over is still up in the air.

There are lots of reasons to oppose this project [Cape Wind], including the increased costs to ratepayers in the years ahead. But yesterday's SJC decision points to yet another. In its efforts to ensure the future of this particular project the Patrick administration has run roughshod over the centuries-old public trust doctrine.

In reality, nobody has a fog what will happen. This is Virtualia, not the UK. During the last year, global warming has been predicted to lead to wetter winters, drier winters, another ice age, blazing-hot Mediterranean summers killing thousands, greater biodiversity and less biodiversity

Your readers should not lose sight of the fact that the "Setting the Course" special section that appeared over a recent weekend (June 4-6) in this paper and six others statewide was a paid advertisement, not journalism. Had it been journalism, the mix of stories would have included one that points out that the technology basket in which Maine intends to put the bulk of its economic development eggs -- floating offshore deepwater wind turbines -- doesn't exist.

Wake up, New Jersey, before more of your tax dollars are wasted on Gov. Corzine's offshore wind farm. ...In these hard financial times, our state and federal governments need to invest taxpayer dollars more wisely than they have. Alternative energy sources are needed, but they must make financial sense. Windmills on land are borderline cost-effective, and that's only because of energy subsidies. Windmills in the north Atlantic never will come close to recovering their cost. If something doesn't make financial sense, we should be looking at who will benefit from its construction. New Jersey citizens will not benefit from this ocean wind farm. Electric costs will rise because of it. Someone needs to follow the money to see who will benefit.

Wind farm generation may be in our future. However, the proposal that is currently before Delmarva Power customers for offshore wind generation is fraught with many problems. If an offshore wind farm has to be built, it should be adjacent to a utility that has a greater customer base than Delmarva has, so the cost per customer would be less.

So much is invested in Michigan to save the shoreline, protect Lake Michigan, keeping the invasive carp out of our waters and to keep the quality of Michigan's natural resources protected, why all of the sudden would our state do a 180% turn? The Scandia Wind Offshore, LLC is talking about putting these wind turbines in some that stretch 450 feet as close as two miles off from the shoreline in Pentwater.

We can build wind turbines, though I am afraid that counts pretty much as tokenism. Every five weeks, China builds new power stations equivalent to the entire British wind electricity program, and 80 percent of them are coal-fired. And for vehicles and aircraft, oil is the fuel.

A very bad day for the people of Ontario. Everybody must continue to fight this McGuntiy Govt. and their ridiculous energy policy.

Today was the first day of the hearing and most of the day was spent figuring out process and time lines. Over the next seven or eight weeks testimony will be heard from people in Ontario and Nova Scotia who have had their lives ruined by the wind turbines near their homes. Setbacks will be questioned as well as noise levels. This small group of people is fighting not just for themselves, but for everyone who is threatened by a wind farm in their neighborhood.

For at least two decades, environmentalists have been pushing the concept of developing clean alternative energy sources, clamoring for greater employment of solar and wind power to generate electricity. They have chided and chastised private industry, government and virtually anyone else who would listen, in an effort to hammer home their solar- and wind-energy mantra.

It takes a certain kind of gumption to stand up to the status quo. Folks who challenge the mainstream media and popular culture are subjected to some of the nastiest insults and character assassinations. And such retribution is nowhere more severe than for those who take issue with popular views about global warming. There are a number of very bright climatologists and meteorologists out there who believe that this century’s warming trend is neither critical nor man made. Now you can agree or disagree with these folks. But you can’t pretend that these folks are crazies or ill informed or just in it for the money. They believe that the models used by the “We’re all going to die!” global warming worriers are far too severe and fail to take enough natural factors into consideration in their climate models. For their audacity to take on the status quo, they have been censured, excoriated and labeled as lackeys for the oil companies.

This is no time to gamble with an additional borrowed sum of $4.8 million, plus interest to construct a 457-foot-tall wind turbine, hoping it will turn out to be a money-maker when in fact it could end up being the town of Wellfleet's "Waterloo."

I get the feeling that if we focused on integrated power generation that included small back yard wind mills, small hydro where feasible, photo voltaic, geothermal and even manual generation we could generate a lot of electricity right at our own homes.

It's too soon to tell how this project might evolve, but there's no doubt Pendleton is no longer as vulnerable to the corporate push on wind power as it used to be. An informed citizenry makes all the difference. There's not a full-time farmer in these mountains who wouldn't understand and sympathize with the Cow Knob families' desire to hang on to their land. ...But as much as we get their motives, we also know they're setting themselves up for a costly, protracted battle.

Controversy surrounds the measures needed to switch to less polluting re-newable energy. Many question a major expansion of onshore wind turbines, given their landscape impact and limited effectiveness. We need new measures to promote effective, alternative renewable energy sources - in the right place.