Two Danish experts in the field of wind energy will be in Washington for the next three days to speak on the subject of wind generated electricity. One would expect they are here to brag on the fact that their country is a leader in the field and that they already satisfy, as President Obama puts it, "20 percent of the electricity through wind power." One would be wrong in such an expectation. They are here to warn us about the dangers of putting our electricity needs in the wind power basket.

Now is the time for you to prove to the people of Wyoming if you really care about the scenic beauty of Wyoming. The wind farm rage is coming. I have been to your wind symposium in Laramie and to the task force meeting in Casper this past week. I have heard so much talk about sage grouse, and state taxes being imposed on a 100 percent tax subsidized industry that I feel Ill!

This must be one of the first instances of a civilisation voluntarily and consciously going backwards. We might as well rely for our economic and industrial future on tens of millions of hamsters pattering frantically round treadmills. Hamsters only do this by night. Windmills only make electricity when it is windy. See the problem? For most of us, the truth has yet to sink in.

The National Post ran a story today about a group of Manitoulin Island residents who are attempting to take on a Toronto-based energy company, Northland Power Inc. The residents are accusing the company of fast-tracking a wind farm project without proper consultation. What that means for those not up to snuff on their provincial consultations, is that any company building wind farms is required to conduct what the province calls an environmental screening.

The tax-dodging Treasury secretary and the chief of the unconstitutional department of energy announced more than half of a billion dollars in unconstitutional government handouts to energy companies this week, most of which will go toward expensive, inefficient wind power through a foreign-owned company. And this is just the "first round." Under the guise of "creating jobs" and "clean energy," this portion of the $54 billion allocated for energy in the "stimulus package" is expected to eventually siphon more than $3 billion from the productive economy - killing a great number of jobs in the process.

In my original post about the Obama administration's awarding of $503 million in "stimulus" funds for alternative energy projects, I wrote that the recipient of $294 million, Iberdrola SA, had executives who had donated more than $21,000 to the Obama campaign and related funds. Another $115 million in funds for windmills went to a company called First Wind, which, I noted, had owners that included D.E. Shaw and Madison Dearborn Partners. Shaw is the firm at which President Obama's chief of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, held a $5.2 million a year, one-day-a-week job, and Madison Dearborn is the firm of which Rahm Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff, said, "They've been not only supporters of mine, they're friends of mine."

If you promise something, you should deliver it. And sooner rather than later-especially if you engage in questionable PR tactics to win your case. I have argued in favour of governments financing both wind generation and nuclear generation, but not because both are equally capable of providing zero-carbon electricity. They are plainly not equal: nuclear provides large-scale, cheap, on-demand power; wind provides small-scale, expensive, erratic power. Comparing the two is like comparing a top-level NHL hockey player to a mosquito-level beginner.

There will be a time when future generations look back at the challenges we are addressing today regarding the development of our wind resources. They will compare our actions to those of our predecessors who dealt with the coal boom of the 1970s, and numerous other development peaks in our state's history. Here's the test: Will we have created an environment where people look upon wind turbines as a point of progress and something positive for the state, or will people look at what we did and see the monsters that Don Quixote saw in windmills?

Stripped of the political grandstanding, Australia's Renewable Energy Target would fail any reasonable cost-benefit test. However much internal warmth the thought of more windmills and solar panels might generate, the cold hard truth is that renewable energy targets have serious economic implications that warrant close scrutiny. Unfortunately, in handing alternative energy companies a subsidised monopoly to supply 20 per cent of our electricity, the RET scheme is unlikely to reduce emissions cost effectively, if at all.

In my 26 years of practicing environmental law I have come to the conclusion that letting the industrial energy complex ravage our public lands for biomass burners and industrial scale wind turbines is one of the big threats our planet has ever faced.

The symposium will also create perspectives for the legislative branches to drum up new laws, along with revenues for Wyoming. In turn the trade-off will be right-of-way easements and more access to state and federal land. Wyoming Wind Corridors will produce the energy, and like all that is produced here, that energy will be sent out on the National Electrical Grid system. Each company online will receive a cut of the Wyoming wind energy pie. Therefore once again Wyoming residents will hold out the coffers' bags, getting the least for the best Wyoming has to offer.

Congress and many state legislatures, including Minnesota's, are exaggerating the potential for renewable energy, especially from wind, solar and biofuels. By assuming that wind can supply 20 percent to 25 percent of our electric power in the coming decade, or that farm fields can replace oil and gas fields, our representatives can avoid voting on hard choices.

Utilities get credits for "green" power they produce, or they can buy the credits from companies that create power from "renewable" sources. If they do neither, they have to pay a fine to the state. Proceeds from the fines subsidize energy conservation projects. Sounds great. But like "cash for clunkers," there are problems. For example, the program already raised electric utility rates by $10.7 million earlier this year. Green power is more expensive. And then there are the windmills.

As the Senate debates carbon policy this week, we have more proposals on the table than anyone knows what to do with and a growing number of questions about their impact on one of the most important facets of modern Australian life: secure, cost-effective power supply.

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 stimulus package passed by Congress in February included almost $80 billion for renewable energy, energy efficiency, mass transit, updating the electrical grid and research. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has made production, development, and delivery of renewable energy one of his department's highest priorities. But the government's focus on using public lands for power generation is not the best solution for our solar energy needs. There is a better way.

The wind filling the sails of alternative energy might slacken if regulators fail to address the concerns of wind farm neighbors. The new industry, which is supposed to be one of the jewels in the renewable energy crown, will lose its appeal rapidly if the rush to build wind farms blows out traditional rural living values. The signs should concern the industry and regulatory agencies.

The Rudd Government's 'green power' strategy has been utterly shredded by detailed analysis which shows the total uselessness of the one form of power on which it is almost entirely based - wind. ...When the wind don't blow, the power don't flow. Even more devastatingly, as this analysis shows, the wind not only don't blow an awful lot of the time. It tends to not blow 'everywhere' at the same time.

Recently, I've been reading up on Alberta's oil sands development because that's going to be a huge issue in determining Canada's response, or lack of one, to reducing man-made greenhouse gas emissions. But anyone who believes this means the rest of us can self-righteously look down our noses at Alberta, doesn't understand the science or the reality. In Ontario, for example, Premier Dalton McGuinty can't call out his Alberta counterpart, Ed Stelmach on the oil sands, until he shuts down Ontario's coal-fired electricity plants, a promise he's been breaking since first making it in 2003.

How would you imagine an environmentalist would react when presented with the following proposition? A power company plans to build a new development on a stretch of wild moorland. It will be nearly seven miles long, and consist of 150 structures, each made of steel and mounted on hundreds of tons of concrete. ...The answer is that if you are like many modern environmentalists you will support this project without question. You will dismiss anyone who opposes it as a nimby ...and campaign for thousands more.