The guest column is her attempt to gain support from Seattle voters to support a project that has been rejected by the Kittitas County Planning Commission, the Kittitas County Board of County Commissioners and now by the governor. For Patton to co-write the column with Helen Wise, a local resident and homeowner who has no dog in this hunt, is just another attempt for her "coalition" to force its agenda on the landowners who will have to live with it in Eastern Washington. It is a cheap shot for those who do not know the real issue.It is not about wind power, but where it is to be located. Imagine a string of 410-foot turbines along Rattlesnake Ridge to Issaquah.

Painful to the ears, and especially painful to the birds, the painful lesson environmentalists need to learn is that the answer to America’s growing energy needs is not blowing in the wind.

The Bennington Banner (editorial, Sept. 8) appears to think that those who oppose industrial wind power plants on the ridgelines prefer nuclear radiation, coal smoke, and mercury poisoning. They have created a paper tiger and missed the real argument.

There are many places where it [wind energy] can work and not be intrusive. But it's not for everywhere. It doesn't belong on ridgetops where it will destroy the "viewshed" and foul the wilderness quality of the last large undeveloped tract in the region.

We are lucky in New Zealand to have one of the best wind energy resources in the world, - the Saudi Arabia of wind, as many call it. There have been concerns over the use of inherently intermittent renewables in a secure energy system. An earlier study by EECA and MED based on the technology we have now, showed wind could provide at least 20% of total electricity generation - so there is plenty of room for growth. The Electricity Commission is currently considering research that will look into improved wind forecasting, increased demand response and more geographically dispersed development of new wind farms.

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.

Dick Keane recently raised the very important question as to what happens when the wind drops and wind turbines are no longer able to make a contribution to the national grid (Letters, August 6). He suggested other, more suitable, ways to use wind power, which do not require a constant output of electricity. It was disappointing, therefore, to read in Emmet Egan's letter, on behalf of the Irish Wind Energy Association, that the Irish solution to the problem is to pass the buck to Eirgrid, because it has the spare capacity to cope when the wind drops. Is the Irish wind industry not making any attempt at all to look at other alternatives for using the output from their wind farms? It was consoling to read in your business pages that Eirgrid has the power to meet winter peak demand, even if the wind drops as we are in the middle of cooking the Christmas dinner.

The motivating force for wind development is simple! MONEY! The huge amounts of federal government incentives such as subsidies, accelerated depreciation and green energy credits add up to millions of dollars for the wind developer.

The six-year battle around Cape Wind is clear evidence that this project is deeply flawed. The conflicts that its location in Nantucket Sound presents to our economy, our environment and public safety are irresolvable, and a better site for the project needs to be identified. It is disappointing to see an elected Cape and Islands representative, Matt Patrick, offer such unqualified support for a project that would come at a great cost to the constituents he represents. The time has come to seek a consensus on a site outside of Nantucket Sound where a wind project can be built without damaging such a venerated national attraction. We look to Patrick and others in the Legislature to take up the challenge and find a win-win scenario, so that real progress can be made toward siting a commercial scale offshore wind facility. People may turn a deaf ear to the bickering that characterizes the Cape Wind conflict, but they would welcome a win-win solution to the problem, if only politicians like Rep. Patrick would pave the way.

We must have a moratorium on all wind farms, even those already with planning permission, until an energy strategy based on facts, not greed and misplaced good intentions, is developed.

Energy policy in Massachusetts took a turn toward the absurd last month after the announcement that the state planned to saddle MetroWest ratepayers - and those across the commonwealth - with $4 billion in above market costs for a single project that provides just one percent of New England's electricity.

Another announcement of plans to build a large wind farm along a Pennsylvania ridgetop brings additional emphasis to the urgent need for the state to enact a windmill-siting protocol. Failure to do so threatens to dramatically alter Pennsylvania’s ridge and valley landscape to a degree not seen since the 19th-century lumber barons denuded Penn’s Woods.

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.

Westwood nullified agency concerns about adverse impacts to eagles by counting birds that did not pose a risk to the developer, then denied the existence of the eagles that do pose a risk to the developer, creating the perception that the eagle issue was adequately addressed. This is a perception deception.

Thirty-six speakers at Perry's Public Hearing on Horizon's Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement offered vast amounts of well-documented research related specifically to the numerous inaccuracies in Horizon's SDEIS. This in contrast to the scant dozen pro-wind speakers who said they "supported the project and the SDEIS," but provided absolutely no independent, scientific information to back up their positions.

Each time I've visited the Maple Ridge Wind Farm I've become more depressed about wind energy development. I could never seem to reconcile the professed benefits of these projects with their obvious adverse impacts. But today I learned the most valuable reason to oppose this industry. The Maple Ridge project site is 12 miles long by 3 miles wide. Up and down the roads we went today and I viewed this industrial power facility once again. In viewing the entire expanse of impacted area I couldn't help but notice that there was no sense of a living community - no routine life. No people walking their dogs, no hikers, no bicyclers, no children laughing and playing (school was out), no clothes hanging out to dry, no school buses, no dogs barking, and very few birds, no one on their four wheelers on their own lands enjoying the open air. There were no roadside stands selling pumpkins. The serenity of rural community life that we all know and love here in northern Jefferson County was strangely absent. In its stead, we saw massive machines everywhere we looked, on both sides of the road. This was Bill Moore's world and PPM literally owned it all.

In a recent article by Jeanne Miles and Gail Montany, "Industrial Wind Tops News from NEK in 2005," reference is made to Shay Totten's piece in the Vermont Guardian, wherein he names David Rapaport and Mathew Rubin (the "R & R team") "Vermonters of the Year."

The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens' plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say and do just about anything to make another billion or two. This column previously discussed the plan's technical and economic shortcomings and marketing ruses. Today, we'll look into the diabolical machinations behind it.

It's hard to grasp, though, how parts of the plan would be implemented. Assuming all the rights to millions of acres could be acquired and the wind farms built, there's still the problem of wind itself. It doesn't always blow. A recent study by Cambridge Energy Research Associates found that wind power is least available between June and September, the peak months for electricity consumption. When the turbines are becalmed, we'll need other power plants - primarily gas-fired ones, which can be started more quickly than other types of generation - to meet demand. What's more, someone has to pay for building transmission lines to carry the power from the prairies. Guess who? In Texas, the cost of new transmission lines is born by consumers, not the generators.