Some have stuff to lose while others have things to gain. Take T. Boone Pickens for example. He's "been an oil man his entire life," until he found wind. Why the sudden burst of what appears to be environmentalism? I don't know Pickens, but I do know this: Oil companies such as Exxon boast a profit margin of approximately 8 percent. Most estimates place his potential profit margin in industrial wind at or above 25 percent. It comes as no surprise, that being a good capitalist, Pickens wants in on wind. Why then does his campaign sound so political? That's easy: Without the government subsidies and tax breaks, industrial wind couldn't make money at all, let alone a 25 percent profit. Makes me think he's not so much concerned about transfers of wealth so long as the wealth transfers to his account. Without our money (the government) transferring to his account, wind isn't profitable, and without the profit he won't build, so he's depending on us to lobby the government. Sound familiar?

It won't happen overnight. Building those lines won't be quick or cheap. It's expected to be at least five years before the lines could be built and ready to flow with electricity. Construction costs could run $2 million per mile for large, high-capacity lines. Customers served by ERCOT, the power-grid operator for the majority of Texas' electric service, would pay the costs over several years through a fee estimated to be $4 on monthly electric bills.

Those familiar with T. Boone Pickens' history will not be surprised to learn that no one is better positioned to benefit from the Pickens Plan than Pickens. His Mesa Power happens to be building the largest wind farm in the world in the Texas panhandle, with as many as 2,000 turbines. It will produce the equivalent of four large coal-fired plants and double the entire wind energy output in the country. He will soon own the majority of the wind power market. ...The billionaire says he doesn't need the money. That's obvious, but it's not the same thing as saying he's not doing it for the money.

In a recent interview with The Intelligencer, Finnegan said he has not taken a stance on the projects yet. "I'm not against wind energy," he said. "But I think it would need to be properly situated. I wouldn't want to see the countryside all covered in turbines. It's something that has to be thought out and regulated carefully." Others in the county have already made up their minds. A new group called the Alliance to Protect Prince Edward County (APPEC) has formed to oppose the proposed projects, saying construction of wind turbines on the south end of the county would violate legislation to protect migrating birds and species at risk.

Billions of dollars are spent through taxpayer subsidies to promote the biggest industry that we know as ENERGY. GREEN ENERGY to be more specific. Wind energy to be exact. ...I am for positive change in how we use energy and how we produce energy. Wind may fit some communities and not others. Responsible developers should consider this fact and not waste our taxpayer money (yes, we fund these projects through NYSERDA and charges on our utility bills) in order to push poorly planned projects into communities that are resistant to industrial wind projects.

The truth about wind generation is that without abatements and subsidies, it is more expensive than current generation. It also takes the same amount of backup generation to operate if the wind is not blowing. Pickens owns thousands of acres north of Pampa. Not one wind-generation unit is to be constructed on his property.

Texas has become enamored of its own wind. We now have the biggest wind-generating capacity in the country, and we're building more. But the reason isn't because we're motivated by environmental concerns - that's just feel-good marketing to rally the green crowd and woo the La-Z-Boy environmentalists. Wind power is an open trough of government subsidies, tax credits and state mandates. Taken together, it's a massive corporate welfare effort that means big money for the wind-power developers and big costs for the rest of us. Ironically, at a time when Texas extols the virtues of free markets for electricity, it's investing heavily in the most subsidized form of power.

So the main problem of wind power is you don't have it when you need it and you have excess generation when don't need it. So without a cost-effective way of storing the energy derived from wind, this is like throwing money into the wind. And companies and individuals who promote wind do it mainly for the subsidies. Currently, wind receives 14 times and more the subsidy paid for nuclear and a whopping 53 times that of coal. ...It looks like the alternative energy folks are counting unhatched chickens that will come home to roost one day as vultures of prophesy. Unfortunately, it will be on consumers' bank accounts.

The politicians are not telling us that wind power can never be used to base load a power generation system. What happens when the wind does not blow, which frequently happens for days at a time even in our windy New Mexico? The base load generation must pick up the slack and this happens a lot. So, unless we are willing, which I am not, to turn off the lights when the wind does not blow, the base load generation must keep expanding. This is where the cost gets exorbitant. For every dollar invested in a megawatt of wind power generation, PNM must also have in reserve or under construction a megawatt of base load capacity. In other words, PNM must spend the money to build two power stations rather than one: the wind farm and coal/nuclear base load plant.

Although they [renewables] are clearly superior to fossil fuels, the processes of manufacturing, transporting, installing and maintaining renewables entail considerable carbon emissions. Further, since they are very small units, the carbon cost of the electricity they produce over their life cycle is significant.

Wind Power claims "overwhelming" support from residents but won't hold a public meeting claiming it would be "hijacked" by opponents. It prefers "information sessions" saying the fact that no residents responded to advertisements for individual meetings showed local support, not distrust of the company, apathy or ignorance. Pyrenees Shire Mayor Lester Harris has offered to convene a public meeting.

"Not a single conventional power plant has been closed in the period that Danish wind farms have been developed," he says. "Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants have had to be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity and to provide backup." Mr. Lodge says it is not practical to turn coal-fired plants off and on as winds rise and fall - because ramping them up consumes more fuel (and emits more carbon dioxide) than running them at a constant rate. Thus Denmark relies almost exclusively on coal-fired plants for its own consumption and exports its wind power at whatever off-peak price it can get.

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.

Furthermore, if turbines can never generate enough electricity to pay for themselves, and if government pays the majority of their cost, then they are an additional drain on the nation's economy - and if they are only 30 percent efficient - and if they are detrimental to the health of people living at even a much greater distance than 1,000 feet, then why, oh why, is Boone County even considering reducing the setback from 2,000 to 1,000 feet?

Call me crazy, but maybe it would be prudent to stop mandating (not to mention subsidizing and incentivizing) massive wind-energy development and start working out the kinks in wind-energy technology while we figure out what role wind should play in the energy-supply mix. Maybe examine whether wind energy will ever be a reliable, affordable energy source before Congress and the various state legislatures declare it to be a winner, without knowing how things will play out. (Think ethanol.) If not, salmon are the least of our worries.

But before you go all wacky for wind power, certain opposition groups like the Industrial Wind Action Group and National Wind Watch want you to hear their side of the story. Their claims are more than just not-in-my-backyard, wet-blanket-complaints. They believe the wind energy industry is spinning lies along with the turbines, luring large public subsidies for a system that is, at best, secondary to fossil fuels.

Expanding "alternative" energies would not be alternative if they worked ("Expand energy alternatives," June 30), they would be just energy sources. ...If solar, wind power and biofuels are so great, they would not need the massive, taxpayer funded subsidies they now enjoy.

Power stations cannot be minutely adjusted to suit wind variations and this results in back-up so that there is no fossil generation displacement and consequently no emissions saving. Wind farm operators who claim X thousand tonnes of CO2 savings are being conjectural, and there is no evidence of any saving.

Even if we trusted Florida Power & Light, and we would be fools to, how do you think FPL's industrial wind turbines could possibly be "exactly what the doctor ordered"? What exactly are they supposed to do for this county? ...Why are we considering endangering eagles, osprey, other wildlife and our beaches for a net gain of 1/1,000th the current generating capacity in a county that exports 500 percent more than we use? Believing FPL's bought-and-paid-for polls and studies is just begging to be lied to again.

EnXco, one of two unscrupulous commercial wind power developers who are attempting to despoil the west end of the Kittitas Valley, is back in the county. They recently placed a full-page ad in the 4th of July Daily Record supplement implying they were a member of the community and positioning themselves as "one of America's premier wind energy companies." ...To set the record straight, a member of the community does not circumvent local land-use authority for the permitting of wind energy projects by asking unelected state EFSEC bureaucrats to pre-empt our elected commissioners' decision to reject their project as originally designed. A member of the community does not knowingly impact his neighbors under the guise of "helping" the larger community when in fact the real purpose is to further their own profits.