I haven't even mentioned that the cost of installing a land-based wind generator has risen 74 percent over the past three years; it's now pushing $2.6 million per megawatt hour. And there's no reason to believe that these associated costs won't continue to rise if some Congressional Mandate forces wind-powered electricity on us. This brings up the next point: That's exactly what promoters of this type of electricity are pushing for, a mandate from the government to move forward. ...Mandated structures don't work. Over the past 35 years Washington has given away untold billions in taxpayer monies or lost federal revenues for pie-in-the-sky ideas that were supposed to wean us off of foreign oil. But when Pickens says we imported 24 percent of our oil in 1970 and it's 70 percent today, he's absolutely correct: Congress gave those billions away and got us nothing in return.

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.

Although AWB strongly supports all forms of renewable energy, we opposed the initiative because of its mandatory nature and because it will increase energy costs. The initiative does not count hydropower as renewable energy, despite the fact that hydropower is Washington's biggest source of renewable energy and produces no greenhouse gases. As a result, in order to meet the 15-percent threshold mandated by I-937, utilities in our state will be forced to sell our cheaper hydropower energy to California in exchange for more costly wind, solar and biomass energy.

Vermont has a long history of protecting its undeveloped ridgelines. Previous legislatures have struggled to protect this beautiful landscape for us and we hope this legislature will be just as vigilant in protecting it for those who will follow.

the Calumet County Board has very limited authority under Wisconsin law to restrict wind towers. Wisconsin Statute 66.0401 states in part: No county may place any restriction, either directly or in effect, on the installation or use of a wind energy system, unless the restriction satisfies one of the following conditions: a) Serves to preserve or protect the public health or safety; (b) Does not significantly increase the cost of the system or significantly decrease its efficiency; or (c) Allows for an alternative system of comparable cost and efficiency. Since this law was enacted in the early 1980s, there has not been one recorded case where a municipality was successful in banning wind towers outright.

The current Ontario government’s headlong rush into massive subsidization of various forms of renewable energy, including wind power and solar energy, is likely to reveal the law of unintended consequences from these precipitous policies unless we take a deep breath and calmly and rigorously re-evaluate these policies before committing billions more dollars from consumers and taxpayers to them.

Their responsibility is that they will listen to the discord and harmony of public discourse and determine the right direction for our public good. To emphasize, we expect them to listen. However, it appears they are failing to meet that expectation. When Mr. Smitherman hosts a town hall meeting and fails to reflect a basic level of empathy with his constituents, telling them the plant will be built regardless of what they have to say, he fails our expectations to listen.

There is near-universal agreement that meeting the state's goals for reducing fossil fuels will require major new lines between California's cities and the places where the wind blows strongest and the sun shines steadiest. Is this power line the right project? No, but it won't be the last attempt. ...We might need new lines, but they need to built in the right way, in the right place, with the least impact to residents and our natural environment.

The villagers should have a forum to voice their feelings so they are not left with a nasty taste in their mouth and resentment in their gut. Further, negotiation with local people with local knowledge might even produce better outcomes for the proposed wind farm. If the Government is to achieve its renewable energy targets we know it has few choices. It can dot the crowded coastline or it can fill up the interior with these turbines. I am sure the Government would not allow hundreds of wind turbines around Newcastle, Wollongong or Sydney without very close and careful community consultation. The people of country New South Wales, and particularly the people of Taralga, no matter whose side one is on, deserve the same respect.

After months of study, a majority of the task force made two recommendations: For the near term, add an additional coal power plant locally. For the long term, expand efforts to encourage energy efficiency.

The state Public Service Commission recently said that before industrial wind projects could be approved that they had to: 1. Prove that their electricity was not just going to replace an existing source of renewable (i.e. low CO2) energy, and, 2. Verify that available transmission capability was sufficient to carry their anticipated new power. Wow. My first reaction was, "You mean to say that these things haven't been being formally checked out all along?" The admission of that is simply astounding.

Can't anyone see the hypocrisy of acknowledging the crisis of global warming while at the same time advocating removal of functioning hydroelectric facilities, which quietly produce totally renewable electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions and, unlike wind turbines, with very little visual impact?

I have been following this extraordinary story for ten years ever since, in 2002, I first began looking carefully at what really lay behind this deceptive obsession with the charms of wind power. It didn't take me long, talking to experts and reading up on the technical facts, to see that the fashionable enthusiasm for wind energy was based on a colossal illusion.

The objective of the GEA, which turns Ontario's electricity market from a low-cost system to a whatever-it-costs regime, is allegedly to reduce the province's carbon footprint. But no carbon-reduction targets have been set or will ever be set, no doubt because it is highly unlikely any significant reductions will occur. It is a myth that solar and wind power have no carbon emissions, as news reports often say. The main policy vehicle for renewable power is a massive subsidy regime.

Conclusion. Wind power is expensive, doesn’t deliver the environmental benefits it promises and imposes substantial environmental costs. Accordingly, it does not merit continued government promotion or funding.

Let me be clear from the start - we are not opposed to renewables. Our companies have been the beneficiaries of the state's most abundant form of renewable energy - hydropower. What we do object to is being forced to subsidize those renewables that are not cost competitive...............Adding significant amounts of wind power does not negate the need to add more baseload generation, to ensure system reliability during periods of peak demand. Until we add significant baseload capacity in this state we are not likely to reap the benefits of a truly competitive marketplace where supply will respond to demand.

President Obama reminded reporters that Texas has one of the "strongest renewable energy standards in the country....And its wind energy has just taken off and been a huge economic boon to the state." ...Texas now has about 8,200 megawatts of installed wind power capacity. But ERCOT, in its forecasts for that summer's demand periods, when electricity use is the highest, was estimating that just 708 megawatts of the state's wind power capacity could actually be counted on as reliable.

The bill would basically tell people, especially those who in the past objected to the siting of natural gas transmission lines and windmills, to go fly a kite.

Most sources of energy are beyond the pale in the Democratic Party, but nothing carries quite the moral stigma of coal. The latest excommunication is under way in Kansas, of all places, and it may be a forerunner of national political trends. Governor Kathleen Sebelius calls it "a moral obligation," as though she were opposing crimes against humanity. This is a reference to coal companies guilty of nothing more than attempting to provide power to consumers. But their misfortunes include emitting carbon dioxide into the current political atmosphere, and also the presence of Ms. Sebelius, who recently invented another way of enacting her preferred global-warming policies without legislation. ...Coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity because it is cheap and abundant - and viable. Wind turbines and the rest of the boutique alternatives are none of those, a reality that Democrats are going to have to square when they actually bother to pass a climate-change bill.

The ripple of controversy prompted Premier Dalton McGuinty to vaguely promise to investigate: "We'll take advantage of the very best information that's out there to make sure that we're doing something that's intelligent," he said after Dr. Robert McMurtry, a former dean of medicine at the University of Western Ontario, presented the survey results. ...And after so many things - cigarettes, asbestos and pesticides - that were initially considered innocuous turned out not to be, I wouldn't dismiss concerns.