U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told a forum on renewable electricity choices last week that solar panels, underwater river turbines, and wood chips "are promising for TVA, but Tennessee mountaintops are absolutely the wrong place for wind turbines three times as tall as Neyland Stadium skyboxes, not to mention the transmission lines that come with them."

Forget everything you’ve heard from people like energy secretary Steven Chu and Exxon boss Rex Tillerson about the need for a mix of energy sources this century. The U.S. doesn’t need any new nuclear or coal-fired plants. It can do the job with just renewable energy and natural gas. Yes, that is ...the line of Jon Wellinghoff, the new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the nominal head of the U.S. power system.

Like anybody who understands electricity, McCracken is both slightly provoked and slightly alarmed by the headlong rush into wind power in Europe and America. "Wind power has its critics and they feel that their reservation have been overridden by policy makers whose imagination have been captured by a green agenda that downplays wind's limitations," says McCracken judiciously. The major limitation, of course, is wind's intermittency -- its lack of "dispatchability." Quite simply, you can never count on it.

The Green Energy Act (proposed in Bill 150) will allow the Ontario Government to push through the installation of thousands of industrial wind turbines across the province without going through the time-honoured environmental assessment process. ...Premier McGuinty and his deputy seem to believe the thousands of complaints they are receiving about Bill 150 can be ignored. Doesn't it matter to them that the bill allows the World Biosphere Niagara Escarpment to be devastated by infrastructure development, or that our precious natural heritage systems will no longer be protected ...?

It's true that government studies show there's enough offshore wind to generate far more than coal plans currently do - in theory. But converting that wind to enough electricity to replace what's now produced by coal won't happen anytime in the foreseeable future.

But there are a lot of questions about wind energy, too, and Gov. Bev Perdue is right to insist that the state have more answers about the suitability of wind power for this region. Her views have taken on added importance at a time when the Obama administration is pushing wind power along the coast as well as preparing for offshore exploration.

During his address to Congress, President Obama declared, "We will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years." While that statement - along with his pledge to impose a "cap on carbon pollution" - drew applause, let's slow down for a moment and get realistic about this country's energy future.

New Interior Secretary Ken Salazar went overboard when he said Monday that windmills off the East Coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, of the coal-fired power plants in the country. ...it's impractical to think that the coal-fired power industry -- which supplies about half of the nation's electricity -- could be displaced by wind turbines.

Michael Trebilcock, a renowned economist and friend of the environment, appeared before the Ontario legislature in April to argue against the Ontario government's proposed Green Energy Act (Bill 150). For the many good reason he outlines, this green act is anything but green. Trebilcock's submission is provided below.

Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark's largest energy utilities) tells us that "wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions." The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that "Germany's CO2 emissions haven't been reduced by even a single gram," and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery. Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases.

Those of us who live close to power lines are concerned about the governor's and CMP's claims of the project's cleanness, greenness, price reliability and general value for Maine. We have met with the Lewiston City Council, our state legislators, attended hearings with the Maine Public Utilities Commission and tried to get CMP to listen to us. We are worried about our own backyards, but we are not interested in having the project simply moved to other people's neighborhoods. We want solution

Because Democrats abandoned a plan to use a Senate squelch-the-minority maneuver to pass a disastrous cap-and-trade carbon tax ...It's far from dead and buried and other disastrous energy policies are being readied for public infliction. Before the Obama administration and its congressional allies are done, we could be reeling from one of the most extraordinary spectacles in American political history - a wholly misguided war against our own self-interests as a people.

If wind energy was the one practical and affordable answer to global warming then I would grit my teeth at the loss of the countryside and accept it. But I know that they are no answer to global warming in northern Europe. The Germans who have invested more than anyone in this form of energy are finding, according to newspaper Der Spiegel, that despite more than 17,000 wind turbines across Germany the nation is now emitting more CO2 than before it built them.

It seems we are now subject to a campaign that uses social rejection as a force to make us accept industrial-scale wind energy stations across the UK; to call them windfarms is disingenuous. As part of this campaign, the great and the good are hectoring on the moral need to embrace wind energy.

The view from the top could not be clearer: Ed Miliband, the minister for energy and climate change, said last week that opposing the onward march of wind turbines - on which the government is pinning its hopes of meeting its targets on renewable energy - should be as "socially unacceptable" as not wearing a seatbelt or failing to stop at a zebra crossing. Hmm. Tell that to the people who believe the view over Britain's last remaining wildernesses is about to be destroyed for ever - and for a very dubious set of returns.

The views of Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, that opposing wind farms should be socially taboo, are the tactics of a bully, using the power of social ostracising to promote his cause. When can we have a serious debate on wind power?

President Obama and Congress are nowhere near drafting a climate bill, but the angst over the future carbon market is in full bloom. There are two good reasons for that: The recent financial meltdown in the U.S., and the recent carbon-market meltdown in Europe. Today, even as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is urging Congress to adopt greater financial-market regulation, another Capitol Hill hearing room is full of concern about another market subject to price gyrations: the carbon market.

There's nothing wrong with developing alternative energy, but keep in mind the old saying: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." While backing off on switching personal vehicles to natural gas, Pickens still wants trucks and other fleet vehicles reconfigured. The Pickens Plan could also cost Americans dearly while compromising property rights in a potential repeat of a bitter and violent chapter of the civil rights era. In the end, Pickens may be the only one happy.

We do need to invest in technologies that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. But I believe we must do so with intelligence and not be seduced by vague or reckless promises that clearly do not stand up to scrutiny. Nor should we proceed with enormous public expenditures without appropriate due diligence and reasonable care, especially when it comes to the health and welfare of our fellow citizens and the future of our children.

Most potential sources of wind and water power are remote from energy-hungry metropolises. What would happen if regulators in one of the Plains states balked at a new high-voltage line connecting a massive wind farm with St. Louis or Denver? Congressional leaders want to head off such problems by passing a bill that grants the federal government the authority to site new transmission lines.