Early in their development, long-bladed wind turbines were seen as threats to birds, especially migrating varieties used to crossing certain mountain passes. Now, in spite of technological improvements and efforts to keep their propellers off at critical times, lawsuits are descending on wind farms - working ones and some on the drawing boards - to turn them off or to stop development in the path of some birds' migration and in bat habitat. But behind some environmentalist arguments against the increasing clusters of wind turbines is a more basic, if less compelling objection: They're ugly. They can be noisy. Besides that, opponents wonder, how do we know they're not sending surges of electricity into the atmosphere, doing who-knows-what damage to animals, two- and four-legged alike?

The former vice president, now in his second career as a climate Cassandra, has spent the past few weeks pushing the notion that the United States can be "repowered" -- that all its electricity needs can be met without producing greenhouse gases. He says it can be done within a decade. ...The problem is that, despite the current boom in green power, renewable sources such as the sun and the wind still provide just a tiny fraction of the U.S. electricity supply. The rest is mainly dirty stuff: coal, gas, oil. To replace one with the other over the course of a decade, energy experts say, would make the Manhattan Project look like a science-fair volcano.

Wind power is often portrayed as a feel-good substitute for big power plants, but it has severe limitations; its performance, obviously, is as fickle as the wind. Because of that, wind farms must still be backed up by conventional power in case the wind fails. "You can predict some changes in the wind broadly but not second-by-second," said Robert Michaels, a professor of economics at California State University, Fullerton, who has studied the issue. ...Wind energy will have a growing place in America's energy portfolio, but its niche probably won't approach the Energy Department's 20 percent prediction.

Let's replace all the coal-fired plants with wind turbines. Just don't site them all in West Virginia and have the electricity travel over hundreds of miles of transmission lines. This time, build the turbines in the cities and the suburbs. Those places are already noisy, and they have no beautiful hills to ruin. Let's put the turbines where the electric customers are. Urban wind farms will let the metropolitan elites see where their electricity comes from.

The most workable and affordable energy plan is one that throws in pieces of everything, from increased oil and gas exploration and production to increased conservation and efficiency in heating and transportation to multiple fuels and power sources for vehicles and electricity generation, old and new (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, biofuels, even new coal technologies and a nuke or two). Such an approach doesn't make for flashy advertising campaigns or snappy slogans.

Pickens' plan is basically a couple of pie charts showing how he'd like to see the U.S. energy economy work. ...He gives no specifics publicly, but he's made it clear that it's up to Congress, not consumers or investors, to make this vision become reality. Because Pickens has announced his gambit in the name of the environment, the media have dropped the skepticism they usually apply to the claims of businessmen trying to make a buck. Because his plan involves government - meaning you and I pay the costs - that skepticism ought to be even greater.

Here's a scenario OPEC would kill for: Your product gets pricier and pricier, and yet demand grows relentlessly. That's the rosy picture facing the world's wind-turbine makers. Denmark's Vestas, the world's biggest turbine maker, reported a big jump in profits today-and a $10 billion order book for more. With a global thirst for clean energy, some companies stand to clean up. Turbine prices have risen 74% in the last three years-and yet countries from the U.S. to China can't get enough of them.

Mr. Pickens and Mrs. Pelosi share the same talking points downplaying the need to drill and open up more access to American oil. Instead, the Pickens pie-in-the-sky plan proposes to replace natural gas with wind power in electricity generation and theoretically free up natural gas for America's transportation needs. All well and good in la-la land, but let's be real about the limitations and costs of wind power.

There is one fly in Pickens's ointment, however. Along most of the "wind corridor," the wind blows the strongest and steadiest before the sun rises; its strength diminishes until the hottest point of the day, just as the demand for electricity, particularly in the summer months, peaks. As a result, replacing natural-gas base load capacity with "wind watts" does not work. Peak loads still will have to be met with natural-gas generated electricity. That will diminish by billions of cubic feet the amount of natural gas available to be converted to transportation fuel, defeating the essence of the plan. The wind corridor is essentially in a single time zone, so morning-wind-generated electricity cannot be "wheeled" to afternoon consumers. Unfortunately, there is no economical way to store wind watts for use later in the diurnal cycle.

But 22 percent by 2020 is far-fetched. Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and expensive (even with subsidies). Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot, 7-ton, bird-slicing blades. They operate at only 20-30 percent of rated capacity - compared to 85 percent for coal, gas and nuclear plants - and provide little power during summer daytime hours, when air-conditioning demand is highest, but winds are at low ebb. ...Launching the enterprise with the backing of federal mandates and subsidies minimizes his [Pickens] financial risk and attracts semi-free-market investors, by putting the risks for his scheme on the backs of taxpayers. A $58-million ad campaign could pay 100:1.

Democrats can't get to Denver without dumping carbon into the air. They're washing away the sins of transportation and electrification by purchasing carbon offsets from a Vermont-based broker called NativeEnergy. ...This modern-day indulgence is officially called the "Green Delegate Challenge." For a mere $7.50, delegates and attendees can buy a carbon offset, making them at least theoretically responsible for new alternative energy. They can then forget about the emissions from jets, limos, buses, trains and taxis they take to Denver. They also can flash the lights, crank up the soundstages and rock 'n' roll like the dominant force they've become with that rhetoric about saving the planet.

Even with heavy subsidies from ratepayers and taxpayers over the last two decades, wind supplies only about 1 percent of America's electricity and 2.3 percent in Kansas. A study by the National Center for Policy Analysis determined that wind energy and other renewables and conservation received between $30 billion and $50 billion over the last 20 years. This represents the largest governmental peacetime energy expenditure in U.S. history, outranking the Strategic Petroleum Reserve program as well as spending on the synthetic fuels program during the mid-1970s. A short-term threat to the growth of wind energy is the looming expiration of federal tax credits at the end of this year. But the wind industry should not ask for more government support. It should be made to stand on its own.

The potential for wind energy is vast, but forgive West Texans if they have an overblown (pun intended) view of what it could mean in the future. Among those, of course, would be Panhandle oilman T. Boone Pickens ...All that said, we have to understand the realities of the entire nation and not be dazzled by the positive effects that have been and will be felt from a regional standpoint.

Unrealistic energy policy is not limited to Washington, D.C. Numerous states clamor for "green" status - picking energy-supply winners and losers and rushing to judgment in the ongoing and unsettled debate on greenhouse-gas emissions. Environmental groups have virtual veto authority over cleaner coal-fired power plants, nuclear facilities, and oil refineries, which can meet an exponentially larger portion of energy and electric demand than the heavily subsidized renewable energies. ...Consumers deserve energy realism, not fanciful plans to replace fossil fuels with renewables. When misguided environmental theory dictates energy policy, the result is high prices, unreliability, and inadequate supply.

For an East Coast liberal hoping to make it to Denver for next month's Democratic National Convention, air or car travel can create quite the carbon-foot printed nightmare. While the DNCC has attempted to help limit the number of guilty consciences by offering to sell delegates carbon credits alleged to help offset damage to mother earth, it turns out that a primary source of these credits is a sham. ...an eastern Colorado wind turbine "tapped for the [DNC's] carbon-offset problem has one problem: It doesn't generate any electricity."

I don't have the benefit of a $58 million marketing campaign, but I'm willing to throw down my own five-point proposal, culled from years of writing about, researching and discussing the issue with energy experts, including Pickens. My plan begins with the idea that energy is really about economics. The solutions, therefore, must make economic sense. That doesn't mean consumers won't have to pay more - we will. And providers must be able to make reasonable returns. Subsidies are fine to develop technology, but we can't sustain businesses that aren't profitable without them, which is why I'm skeptical of wind power.

The warning, "Be careful what you wish for," is beginning to have ironic resonance in the energy economy. The more utopian environmentalists, for example, seem to be between the proverbial rock and a hard place, even if they don't know it or won't admit it. ...When some interest group whether the drill-more crowd or green revolutionaries advances a sure-fire solution, look behind the rhetoric.

No one wants to live near a wind farm. ...Wind farms are noisy neighbors and can make people crazy listening to them. Legislatures have to pass laws to exempt them from law suits identifying them as a public nuisance. I do not fault T. Boone for wanting to make more millions, but his advertisements and public relations campaign talks about oil to divert people's attention and awareness from what he really wants to do and that is build lots of wind farms and sell electricity. That's deceptive. Are we running out of coal in America? Not for hundreds of years. Can we build more nuclear power plants? You bet.

Al Gore said that the United States should produce all of its electricity from carbon-free, renewable energy within 10 years. Although he didn't lay out specifics, he seems to want to do it with wind, solar, and geothermal, although it's not clear from his speech whether nuclear would be acceptable. Can it be done? It isn't likely. ...scaling up a new source of energy can bring unanticipated consequences. Careful planning is required. We need some realistic plans for making the switch to renewable electricity, not empty rhetoric with unachievable goals.