Next week, Bath County planners are likely to discuss and review what may be one of the most important new ordinances our county has considered in decades - one to guide them on how applications for industrializing their mountaintops with wind energy turbine towers will be handled. If officials here succeed in passing it, Bath will be the first locality in Virginia to have an ordinance in place addressing commercial wind utilities. And it won't come a minute too soon. ...

The most important factor to consider when evaluating the environmental impact of wind generation is that the power source is inconsistent and intermittent. This variability can present substantial challenges to incorporating large amounts of wind power into a grid system, since to maintain grid stability, energy supply and demand must remain in balance. In order to integrate wind energy, utility companies must provide a power load to meet the base requirements of the population.

Yass Valley Council has reiterated its stance on wind farm projects, including its conviction that a national code should be established for the provision of all wind farms constructed in Australia. ...Councillors reiterated this stance at last Wednesday night's meeting. "There needs to be some clarity. We are not saying no to wind farms, we are just saying that conditions need to be put in place," Councillor David Needham said.

I was disappointed by your editorial of Sept. 9 titled "Wind power deserves the investment." I expected to find the kind of real cost information on wind power I've been looking for. In the end, I was irritated by its total failure to support the contention implicit in its title.

The guidelines included in State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Wind Industry Ethics Code provide vital oversight into the wind energy industry. The proposed ethics code establishes public disclosure requirements that will allow residents to know the full extent of any involvement between public officials and wind energy companies. ...Three wind energy companies have already signed on to the Attorney General's Wind Industry Ethics Code. We hope Babcock & Brown, sponsor of the proposed Ripley-Westfield Wind Farm, signs on in the very near future.

We have just seen the collapse of the financial Goliath that was built by fast-buck bankers and encouraged by altruistic but shortsighted government policies that required banks to make more loans to those least able to repay them, and encouraged passing on these loans as quality investments. We are now building a second Goliath in the form of irrational investment in wind and solar-voltaic energy.

One of the most bizarre aspects of the debate over "wind farms" in West Virginia and surrounding states is the unquestioning acceptance by many environmentalists of wind energy as a credible and environmentally friendly energy source. I have read many articles and letters written by dedicated environmentalists touting the benefits and discounting or completely ignoring the adverse consequences of wind energy. The prevailing belief of these individuals is that we must embrace wind energy as at least a partial solution to the increased burning of fossil fuels and global warming. ...So, I ask all environmentalists who "believe in wind" to please do some research and become informed of the realities of industrial wind energy in the eastern highlands. Be skeptical of the claims of those who have financial incentives to promote this scam.

State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has taken the lead at the state level to bring some oversight to the proliferating proposals for wind power developments across the state. Mr. Cuomo has drafted what is now a voluntary set of ethical guidelines for wind power companies and municipal officials in the wake of a corruption investigation in Franklin County, where wind companies are alleged to have improperly influenced local officials to get permission to build wind towers.

Instead of messing with farms, let's put solar and wind energy facilities where they belong. ...This legislation tries to satisfy one societal need - clean energy - by compromising another - preserved farmland. Perhaps it's easier to place clean power generation facilities on open land than retrofit other sites, but this tendency to look to greenfields to satisfy new development needs is precisely the kind of practice that has brought so much sprawl to New Jersey.

The Lone Star State's renewable-energy mandates - combined with the federal government's generous tax credit for wind-energy production - have helped Texas become the nation's leading installer of wind-energy capacity. You won't find much opposition here to wind energy's rapid expansion, because so much money is pouring into the state. It's all fun and games - until Texas consumers pay the long-term price for everyone else's short-term gain. And pay they will. In my just published study, Texas Wind Energy: Past, Present, and Future (PDF here), we estimate that forcing even modest levels of wind-energy generation on Texans will cost ratepayers and taxpayers up to $4 billion a year, and at least $60 billion through 2025.

The Ocean State recently granted a New Jersey-based renewable energy firm the right to build an industrial-size wind farm about 20 miles off the coast of Rhode Island. DeepwaterWind CEO Chris Brown told the Associated Press his firm builds turbines on large platforms originally designed for offshore drilling rigs, which means they can operate in deep waters and out of sight of land. He expects to build around 100 turbines offshore. "What we've really focused on is that we want to be beyond the horizon," Brown said. "We don't think that you have to choose between...the view and the environment."

It's difficult to say wind energy is contagious in our neck of the woods. You get the feeling some northwest Arkansas residents would like to back any proposal for alternative forms of energy, but many others aren't enamored with every plan. ...As much as one sees the sense in developing alternative energy, one must also recognize the potential for clashing interests when someone proposes adding these massive wind turbines to large sections of land.

If you follow current events, it's hard to miss the bandwagon behind solar and wind to solve our global warming and energy problems. But the shortcomings of these renewables deserve a public airing. There is a place in the electric grid for solar and wind, just as there is for hydroelectric and geothermal power. But these alternate power sources alone do not provide the reliability necessary to prevent interruptions in the nation's electric supply.

The likes of wind farms and other similar ventures have always been seen as more of a headline grabber in the UK rather than a real alternative for the future. The authorities have given minimal tax incentives for companies to get involved and there have even been complications with getting them connected to the national grid. All in all the alternative energy market has been launched and re-launched on many occasions but it is just not working.

I'd like to share some thoughts on wind energy with you. My problems with wind energy have been the same for 40 years and little has changed to modify any of this. After 40 years of heavy subsidies, dedicated government research programs (wind mills just aren't that complex), wind energy is still a small marginal source of unreliable energy. Even with government mandated Renewable Portfolio Standards (government edicts, not free markets), which force the utilities to buy this costly energy, the problems are more costly and the engineering problems remain.

Wind energy could supply up to 20 percent of the nation's power supply but the two variables few talk about are reliability and transmission. The places where the wind blows the most -- like western Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle -- also have few residents or businesses that need the power. To achieve the kind of wind power percentage that some states are mandating will require between 12,000 and 19,000 miles of new power lines criss-crossing the country. That kind of power line construction will cost up to $6.4 billion.

[D]ue to the threats of global warming and skyrocketing oil and gas prices that have caught everyone's attention, all the parties have jumped on the green bandwagon with many promising a future where our dependence on fossil fuels and their harmful consequences to our environment will be a thing of the past. Such Utopian visions are commendable but the devil will be in the details for whoever forms the next government

With Byron voters rejecting Independence Wind's proposal for wind power, plans for 20 turbines in Roxbury are moving ahead, despite efforts from some townspeople to reverse approval of that project. Meanwhile, another company - First Wind - plans turbines for nearby Black Mountain and will hold a meeting Thursday night to provide information and, probably, to quell the inevitable protest. And, in a plot twist, Independence Wind has announced a "Power to the People" campaign. If the zoning needed for their turbines is approved and the turbines are built, they promise free electricity to all Roxbury residents.

I find it amazing that the public is so uninformed on the topic of wind turbines. People think wind is the golden egg of green energy; in fact, turbine companies cannot exist as viable companies without government subsidies. ...Green energy is great, I'm all for it, but not at a cost that will put the average Canadian taxpayer in the poor house.

In Swansea we have the threat of possibly a massive, useless wind farm being built on Mynydd y Gwair Mountain which will visually pollute this area of outstanding natural beauty from the Gower to Brecon Beacons, Powys and Cardigan Bay, in other words, about a quarter of Wales. Why? Because the Welsh Assembly Government wants to build wind farms to provide intermittent, stuttering electricity supplies which we do not need. How daft and subservient can we Welsh get!