Last year, the legislature passed a bill to spend $50 million a year on renewable energy projects for the next five years. I voted for that bill. During the special session, the amount was bumped up by another $50 million. I voted against that addition, on the grounds that we shouldn't double the price tag of an untried program. ...They say if you do this job long enough, you're bound to make mistakes. I think voting for this cart-before-the-horse renewable energy bill is one of mine.

Why has California basically stalled, while other states have forged ahead? I put the question to V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies in Sacramento. First, Mr. White pointed out, California was the early leader in wind power - it installed several big projects in the 1980s (one of which, Altamont Pass, has been criticized for harming birds). Not much has happened since, however, and the fact that California moved early "means that the easy projects are already in," said Mr. White.

Wind is the latest Maine resource whose value has been identified by outsiders. In the emerging post-petroleum economy, wind is valued for its potential to produce cheap electricity, and Maine's undeveloped ridge lands provide prime locations for towers and turbines. This has the potential to make businesses building those towers and turbines a lot of money. ...Measuring that benefit is a complex analysis, and difficult to explain.

Here in Huron County we have municipalities struggling with how to regulate proposed wind farms. Those opposed to the turbines point to the potential of the health risks some have claimed are possible by living close to turbines. Others don't like the noise from the turbines. Others just don't like what they look like. Whatever the reason, it's clear the issue of wind farms is a controversy that won't go away soon.

What has taken most of the steam out of the Pickens Plan, of course, is the simple fact that a lot of people have stopped caring. When Boone launched the Pickens Plan in July, crude oil was at $136 a barrel and rising. Now, with crude at or below $40 a barrel, the last thing the public is concerned about is alternative energy.

When it concerns energy policy, "alternative" energy sources are currently all the rage. It appears as if most of the pet projects that are proposed to solve our energy problems are related to wind-power turbines. ...Why are T. Boone Pickens and other venture-capital investors so interested in wind power? Well, the answer is obvious - money. The electric utility companies are required to buy any generated energy and the price is preset at the current wholesale price.

Renewable sources such as wind energy, geothermal energy, hydroelectric power, photovoltaic and solar thermal energy should only be considered supplements. Replacing, for instance, a coal power plant of 100 megawatts would require 300 to 400 wind generators, even if we assume a nominal performance of 2 to 2.5 MW per wind generator. And the problem of storing of wind-generated energy during long-lasting periods of calm has not been solved. Is such a substitution reasonable for Interior Alaska? Certainly not.

Green energy has been on the subsidy take for years, including in 2005 when Mr. Delahunt was calling for "an Apollo project for alternative energy sources, for hybrid engines, for biodiesel, for wind and solar and everything else." The reality is that all such projects are only commercially viable because of political patronage. Tufts economist Gilbert Metcalf ran the numbers and found that the effective tax rate for wind is minus-163.8%. In other words, every dollar a wind firm spends is subsidized to the tune of 64 cents from the government.

We hear a lot about wind turbines effects on viewsheds and tourism, birds and bats and the question of whether or not wind energy can have any effect on CO2 emissions when the turbines must be backed up by fossil fuel generation. All these are valid considerations, but the strongest argument against wind farms in our mountains is that they are a poor investment. A look at the U.S. Department of Energy's national wind resource map tells the whole story.

A renewable portfolio standard is said to be needed for creating and improving renewable energy technologies. In practice, however, it does little to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and makes energy production excessively expensive. Coal-fired power plants produce more than 83 percent of the electricity sector’s carbon dioxide emissions. But because coal is cheaper than natural gas or oil, it is the least likely to be displaced by solar or wind power. Natural gas has a relatively low carbon content. But it is likely to be the first to be displaced by renewable sources of energy because it is more expensive than coal. That means that even a renewable portfolio standard as high as 20 percent would reduce emissions by only a small fraction of what is needed to lower the risk of catastrophic climate change.

The Times noted, however, that while policymakers and environmentalists "love the idea of generating clean power from the sun, wind, water and geothermal sources to displace imported oil," the Cape Wind problems illustrate how locally, "there is often opposition to the hardware needed to make renewable power work: big windmills, acres of solar panels and large-scale transmission lines."

What happened in Roxbury, though contentious, needed to happen. Community-changing projects cannot be built without debate, scrutiny or emotional outburst - it comes with the territory ...What should resonate from Roxbury into the ears of public officials and wind developers across Maine is this: Residents affected by wind projects care deeply about their communities and will fight doggedly to ensure their interests are heard and their demands met.

Gov. Donald Carcieri seems determined to jump-start offshore wind power development. Not waiting for state experts and scientists to complete the process of picking the best ocean sites for turbines, he has had his Energy Office contract for the construction of a small number of wind turbines off Block Island. The main customers, it seems, will be island residents, who certainly appreciate the governor's interest in serving our needs. But still, it's fair to wonder if this contract is real business or just cheerleading?

Advocates of wind power are likely jumping up and down after Gov. Deval Patrick set a goal on Tuesday of the state generating 2,000 megawatts of electricity by wind turbines by the year 2020, but they might want to curb their excitement. ...Gov. Patrick's goal of 2,000 megawatts by 2020 is laudable but simply unrealistic.

It took legislators decades to establish agencies and laws to protect the environment, and Gov. O'Malley one legislative session to strip Allegany and Garrett counties of these protections. The 2008 Fast-Track legislation denies review and restrictions for wind turbine development by the Department of Environment, Maryland Department of Planning, the Maryland Energy Administration and the Department of Natural Resources, and of obtaining a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the Public Service Commission (PSC). All other counties in Maryland have these agencies protecting them.

For some time, Florida Power & Light has been trying to join the green energy revolution. Prodded first by the governor's direction to diversify its fuel sources, and later by the governor's incentive programs for green energy, FPL has tried a variety of projects with mixed results at best. ...In the face of its own assertions that wind was not practical in Florida, and the independent studies showing there was enough wind for the latest model turbines only on the oceanfront, FPL persisted in proposing wind turbines at its St Lucie nuclear site.

When you listen to what Obama says about "stimulating the economy", I want you to remember those hundreds and thousands of windmills sitting in the Altamont Pass producing zero electricity at the moment. There is a place for wind energy as part of the nation's total energy package, but it's by no means the largest part and it's by no means cheap!