Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell recently had a tête-à-tête to discuss how B.C. could assist California in dealing with its energy crisis. At the same time, the California Utilities Commission gave Pacific Gas and Electric US$14 million to explore renewable energy sources in B.C. and the feasibility of a new transmission corridor stretching from B.C. to the Golden State. Conspicuously absent from the self-congratulatory press releases about co-operation between the jurisdictions in pursuing a "green" agenda was the most important issue: Who will own - and benefit from - the development of B.C.'s renewable energy? A closer look at the B.C. government's wind energy policies reveals an enormous giveaway of literally billions of dollars in wind farm assets and future public revenues to private power developers. Yet there has been virtually no public discussion of the scope and cost of the government's wind energy policies.

Today was the first day of the hearing and most of the day was spent figuring out process and time lines. Over the next seven or eight weeks testimony will be heard from people in Ontario and Nova Scotia who have had their lives ruined by the wind turbines near their homes. Setbacks will be questioned as well as noise levels. This small group of people is fighting not just for themselves, but for everyone who is threatened by a wind farm in their neighborhood.

At the eleventh hour and at the brink of hard-won success, Maritime Electric "ran the numbers" and decided the bypass they worked with us to secure was too expensive after all. At a meeting on Friday, April 20, I was told that the differential cost was about $75,000. This is approximately 2% of the cost for the entire transmission line expansion, estimated at about $3.75 million. According to government sources, it is less than one half of the amount they spent on a botanical analysis and environmental assessment process (required by provincial policy) to safeguard rare flora and ecologically unstable wetlands/streams. Less than $100, 000 to save a community, and Maritime Electric bows out of a year-long commitment. It beggars the imagination.

This Earth Day, Professor Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist and the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, wants you to calm down. The Earth, he says, is in good shape. "Forests are returning in Europe and the United States. Air quality has improved. Water quality has improved. We grow more food on less land. We've done a reasonably good job in much of the world in conquering hunger. And yet we're acting as though: "How can we stand any more of this?" A leading critic on the theory of man-made global warming, Professor Lindzen has developed a reputation as America's anti-doom-and gloom scientist. And he's not, he says, as lonely as you might think.

Dr. Friis-Christensen questions the very premise that human activity explains most of the global warming that we see, and through his work he has convinced much of an entire scientific discipline to explore his line of inquiry. Of all the scientists who are labelled "deniers" because they don't support the orthodoxy of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, none comes in for more vilification than Eigil Friis-Christensen. For understandable reasons.

That's not good enough for Lisa Betts, who is calling on the county to increase the setback to two kilometres. She feels the setback should be 10 times the height of the turbine. Only then would nearby residents not have to listen to the turbine blades or be bothered by shadows cast by the turning blades. While she may or may not be crying wolf, we have to be sure there is sufficient evidence to support the county's proposed setbacks before it ends up with egg on its face. After all, it's a situation that's going to keep coming up as more developers look at the county as a location for wind farms.

CanWEA, as a lobbyist organization for the multi-national wind industry will make every attempt possible to discount or minimize any potential problems in order to keep government subsidies rolling in to the corporations they represent and get their towers erected. CanWEA is not an environmental advocacy group.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to say that she was happy when her opposition resorted to attacking her or her colleagues’ character. It meant, she said, that they (her opponents) could not win the battle of ideas. If that is true, then the eco-extortionists are definitely on the run.

Who are the global warming deniers, those scientists who downplay the human cause of climate change, who claim that manmade climate change, if it's occurring at all, may have modest costs or even bring benefits, who claim that the science is not settled on climate change? To discover whether these deniers are crackpots from the fringes of academia, as their detractors so often claim, I decided to investigate scientists at odds with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, the official body organizing the great bulk of the climate research that dominates the public airwaves. After writing 10 columns on the subject, one for each "denier" and his theories, one fact is undeniable: The science is not settled. Not on man's role in causing the warming we've seen this century. Not on the consequences of this warming. Certainly not on the extent of warming –or cooling – to come.

From Barton, Vermont, to the German border with Denmark and from the shores of Lake Huron, to the Romney Marches of southern England, wind power advocates are fighting crosswinds from local residents. In Barton in mid-January, a referendum overwhelmingly rejected the wind power turbines that were planned near this upper Vermont community. ...In Germany, where one-third of the world's current wind power is generated, doubters have provoked a loud debate. The company that owns the grid that includes nearly half the wind-farms in Germany reported its wind farms generated only 11 percent of their capacity. The company said the winds vary so much the wind farm had to be backed 80 percent by the conventional power grid.

The associated environmental and health impacts are real. Rural residents will not be persuaded to “do their part” knowing that corporate marketing and provincial promotion overstates the benefits of this power source and plays down the negative impacts. Until developers site these projects in more appropriate areas and earn, not demand respect, they will continue to face costly delays and opposition.

To question the wisdom of wind power in Canada these days is to risk winding up impaled on a rotor blade. Environmentalists, politicians and investment bankers all seem to agree that wind energy is the next big thing. Unfortunately, few seem to have consulted Mother Nature on this...............Wind power may be today’s “it” energy. But eventually, the hype — like that unreliable northern gust itself — must die down.

Last week, when questioned about the Electricity Marketplace Governance Committee recommendations intended to allow large consumers (such as HRM) to purchase electricity directly from independent power producers, EnergyMinister Bill Dooks was less than enthusiastic. First, the minister stated that he supported NSPI’s monopoly on the distribution of electricity, since he had to protect Nova Scotians. Second, he said, "If someone depends totally on wind energy, what happens if the wind stops blowing?" Taken together, these two statements leave the reader with the impression that the minister wants to protect Nova Scotians from interruptible and potentially unreliable sources of energy. This is reassuring, as energy security should be the focus of any government.

Statements made by Derek Tennant on wind power were incorrect. The wind industry is drawing a lot of attention and promoters who have very little knowledge of wind or the electricity industries.

And although the government talks bravely about having 5 per cent of the generating capacity coming from new wind plants and other forms of renewable energy, one need look no further than the current situation in Amaranth Township to realize that little of the needed new capacity will be ready by 2009. And even if it were, the wind plants are hardly a reliable source of power during the hottest summer weather, when all too often there's little wind apart from that generated by thunderstorms, which also routinely shut down the wind plants through lightning strikes.

Perhaps it is a commentary on the standards of contemporary journalism that it was difficult to distinguish between Keller's article (How useful are wind-energy plants? 8/4/06) and a wind developer's marketing brochure. The short answer is not very. Comparing wind power to conventional hydro power is specious. Hydro power is available when it isn't raining. That's what dams are for. Wind energy isn't controllable. More to the point: wind energy's achilles' heel-its intermittency- limits its capacity value and its impact on emissions.

To suggest that the approval process be streamlined and that these huge projects be "fast-tracked" displays his [Tyler Hamilton] lack of understanding regarding the significant environmental impacts associated with industrial wind power.

Deep down in this green cauldron of deception and delusion, bubbles a government and corporate feeding frenzy. The only “green” in this cauldron, however, is money and the hands stained in its passing.

If P.E.I. has any future in the generation of wind energy, it needs the cable to export it. One way or another, Premier Binns has to drive home this point to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government.

Now we wonder what it would be like with the threat of construction of huge wind turbines with the constant noise and the strobe lights, which would mean that never again would we see the beauty of the sunset.