Wind power costs a lot to build and nothing to operate. Could it hammer the profits of power utilities that currently charge a premium to light your home by burning the decayed remains of ancient organisms? Investors shouldn't be too worried, according to Lasan Johong, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Johong says that increasing our reliance on wind power could actually raise power prices significantly.

Conservation used to be the coolest thing in energy planning. But now all most people want to talk about is the next great renewable energy source -- wind farms, solar arrays, small-scale nuclear plants, even wave energy. And while all those sources of energy are promising, the Northwest Power Planning Council's new 20-year power plan is right to go back to the future: It proposes doubling down on the Northwest's long history of conservation to meet 85 percent of the region's new demand for electricity. It's a smart and bold plan, even if it disappoints the clean-energy activists who have pressured the council to declare the Northwest a coal-free zone.

The romantic view of wind power is a stand of wind turbines atop a ridge gently spinning in a breeze generating clean electricity in place of an emission-producing power plant. Another view is a natural landscape defaced by huge structures whose operation annoys its neighbors, produces power randomly and does not reduce pollutants because fossil-fueled plants continue to operate as backup. The "pop" culture support and promotion of wind power is all based upon conceptual or theoretical constructs which do not reflect the physical, financial or regulatory realities of operating our electric grid system.

There is considerable data now available to anyone with an open mind and objective perspective that clearly shows industrial wind generation has severe limitations as an efficient alternative-energy source. The experiments in many European nations as well as those in operation in the U.S. and now also including the Wolfe Island project which dramatically impacts this region can only boast at best a 20 percent to 25 percent rate of production.

Let me argue that the first test of an energy policy for the new age is not "alternative energy" at all - but rather conservation first, then energy efficiency and decentralization of the power structure. Renewables should serve these ends rather than be an end in themselves that may, in fact, be mostly useless. Wind power is especially troublesome in that regard. Even if NSP reaches 25 per cent renewables by 2015 based on wind, it will not have cut 25 per cent of greenhouse gases, which, after all, is the main goal. It may not have cut much greenhouse gas at all, in fact.

Cash-strapped Britain is now facing a looming energy gap, priced yesterday by Ofgem at up to £200bn. This is the sum that may be required to build new energy infrastructure while meeting environmental targets. Who pays, you wonder. Well, you do, with the pain intensifying around 2015 when Britain shuts down its most polluting coal-fired power plants and our old nukes. Then, household bills could jump by 60pc - enough to make anyone's hair stand on end.

Investment bankers are all aflutter with the onset of stimulus money for renewable energy projects according to the August 31 Wall Street Journal. After a long lag, numerous firms have again invested upwards of $100 million in wind farms. Investors are attracted by the quick returns made possible by the hefty federal grants and tax benefits. The growing subsidies for wind power mask wind's high cost and inherent limitations, but only for so long. ...Although appealing to many, wind power is an extremely expensive, inefficient, and unreliable source of electricity, incapable of providing base load power. Wind's intermittency, variability, line loss, necessary back-up generation, transmission needs, and dispatch complexity limit the amount of electricity wind can secure.

Right now, the state is in limbo regarding renewable energy development. As Vermont has seen relatively little development of renewables, the guidelines for what is and isn't acceptable are less codified than in states already hosting thousands of megawatts of wind or solar installations. ...renewable energy is an area where thorough regulation of an industry is valuable, and our state has exactly the regulatory climate and environmental cachet to do the job.

At the center of the back-and-forth between the Maine Public Utilities Commission and warring energy developers is a question of whether industrial-sized wind farms are feasible in Maine. ...The transmission line issue is not new to the PUC or to state and industry leaders who promote wind-power development in Maine. But it may come as a surprise to much of the public who see wind power as a clean form of energy that comes with little or no environmental cost.

I wish to express my grave concerns with the passing of Ontario's Green Energy Act. No matter where anyone buys a home, if it is near agricultural land, there is no guarantee that this land will not be used to erect industrial wind turbines more than 400 feet high, a mere 550 metres from the centre of your home, and residents are now powerless to prevent such an unwanted intrusion.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Public Act 295, called the “Clean, Renewable, and Efficient Energy Act.” This deceptively named law requires all Michigan utilities to produce 10% of their energy from renewable energy sources by 2015. Of course, the “renewable energy” they’re talking about is the kind we don’t have. Its water, biomass, and wind. It specifically excludes coal, nuclear and oil, three things we can buy or build that generate lots of cheap electricity. The kind of reliable, cheap power that people look for when they’re going to build a plant that employs people.

Regulating small wind farms in Wisconsin often is akin to holding a jury trial without a judge. Wind farm developers and municipalities argue their respective cases without anyone to referee the inevitable disputes that arise. That soon could change. ...Now it's up to the PSC to develop rules that are fair to everyone. Developers and local communities ultimately will be the judges of that.

At the G20 Pittsburgh summit, Canada endorsed a commitment to end subsidies to fossil fuel industries and step up subsidies to renewable energy sources. "We commit to...stimulate investment in clean energy, renewables, and energy efficiency," said the leaders. If anybody wonders what stimulating clean and green energy programs might mean to economic policy, a working model comes into effect today in Ontario.

Small wonder one of the earliest, most enthusiastic backers of emissions trading in the U.S. -- which President Barack Obama and the Congress are about to drag Americans, and thus all of North America, into -- was Ken Lay, the late chairman of Enron. The now-infamous energy-trading company, later convicted of global fraud, predicted more than a decade ago emissions trading would "do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring" the fossil fuel industry.

Why not harvest seemingly limitless wind and sunlight and eliminate the pollution inherent to fossil fuels? Legendary Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens made much the same argument when he promoted wind energy and natural gas during an appearance at Indiana University this month. Yet, a national study issued in August by The Nature Conservancy, a not-for-profit whose mission is to protect ecologically sensitive land and water, raises yellow flags even for wind and solar-not to mention biofuels.

Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to reduce greenhouse gases could fail to reach its goals - or it could expand the use of coal power in California. ...When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order last week to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he made national headlines ...But a closer examination of Schwarzenegger's order reveals that the hype surrounding it may have been overblown.

Last week, the New England Governors' Conference raised green fantasy to new heights with the release of its Renewable Energy Blueprint, which said the region "has a significant quantity of untapped renewable resources, on the order of over 10,000 MW combined of on-shore and off-shore wind power potential." Neither the report nor the news articles about it bothered to do the math. At 7 MW, New England would need 1,429 E-126s to tap that potential. Though the turbines likely would be clustered in "farms," that's an average of 238 per state, or more than one for each town in Connecticut. The cost would be $221 billion that the states don't have, though they might get a bulk-purchase discount of a billion or two.

Over the last several months, extensive arrays of thousands of windmills have been placed throughout the landscape of northwestern Indiana. Once located quite a far distance away from the roads , these windmill fields are now prominently visible along several highways just north of Lafayette. Along with the intense search for alternative sources for fuel currently being undertaken by several companies in the state, Indiana is beginning to do its part ...Unfortunately, the rush to place windmills throughout the corn fields along Indiana highways is not as innocent as it might first appear.

We can be fiercely protective of the green and pleasant land itself, or what remains of it. And it has never needed more protecting, because this autumn a new quango - created, symbolically, by the unelected Lord Mandelson - may usher in the biggest change to the landscape in our lifetime. ... Well, the Government wants to increase renewable energy production and is irritated that wind-farm developers are constantly being delayed, or even thwarted, by challenges from local objectors and conservation groups such as the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England.

Alternative energy has become quite fashionable, especially in electricity generation. Wind, solar, tides, dairies. If you can work "carbon emissions" or "global warming" into the press release, you've got a winner. Electricity is the lifeblood of our America. Are you ready to turn back the clock on your standard of living? Until the technology improves on alternative electric energy sources, they all have to be considered experimental and supplementary. Here's why.