A new kind of gold rush is going on in the Mojave Desert, according to county Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. The sought-after objects are sunshine and wind. More than 100 wind farms and solar-energy installations are proposed, enough to cover 1,300 square miles. The rush has raised alarms among residents and local officials who fear the stark beauty of the desert could be destroyed. They need only look as far as Palm Springs to see what their future could look like: rugged mountains and sandy desert floor obscured by a forest of 400-foot tall turbine towers visible from a busy interstate. ...Mitzelfelt and Nassif are concerned that the desert is being asked to bear the brunt of reducing the nation's carbon footprint. ...The San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society finds itself torn on the issue. It supports renewable energy, having sued the county for failing to have a plan to reduce global warming. But experience has shown that wind turbines kill bats, owls, hawks and other birds by the thousands, said President Drew Feldmann. "We don't want to destroy the environment to save it," he told the county and BLM in a letter.

From what we have been able to ascertain, many residential properties in the Victor Valley will be adversely affected by the Granite Mountain Wind Energy Project. Residents of Apple Valley, Lucerne Valley, and perhaps even some from Hesperia need to pay attention to what the Bureau of Land Management and Granite Wind LLC is building approximately six miles east of the Apple Valley town limits in our Granite Mountains (on a combination of BLM and privately owned land). ...we believe this area is asked to carry too much of the burden for the creation of alternative energy sources. We believe that the creation of this wind farm will be our "third strike" and that will cause a significant negative impact on the value of our property.

Green power for Marin is a concept that has merit along with a loyal and growing fan base. But before the concept becomes a reality, it needs broad public support. ...One important caveat: While the local authority would sign contracts with green power suppliers, there is no way to promise that green juice actually flows to homes in Marin. Once electricity is added to the grid, it all gets mixed together - like water in a reservoir fed by many streams. Most of Marin's green power would be generated outside Marin. What the local power authority is actually doing is increasing the demand for green energy, which will, in turn, lead to increases in the supply of green power. At least that's the theory. ...We urge county officials and green power supporters to put an advisory initiative on the November ballot.

‘Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow!" California may soon rant alongside King Lear as it presses to meet Assembly Bill 32's mandate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide. To achieve that mandate, the California Energy Commission established an energy action plan calling for the state to generate 20 percent of its electricity with renewable resources by 2010, and 33 percent by 2020.

After years of trying to get wind farm operators to act voluntarily to reduce bird deaths at the Altamont Pass, California wind farm, environmental groups have filed multiple lawsuits in an effort to change the way the plant operates. ..."We are deeply concerned that we haven't seen a reduction in bird deaths, and concerned as well that certain terms of the settlement were apparently not fully implemented on the agreed-upon timeline," said Elizabeth Murdock.

According to an article printed in the Deseret Morning News on Dec. 21, the wind farm planned for the Milford area will receive tax subsidies from the state of Utah to the tune of $4.3 million. Since all of the electric power from this subsidized project will be sent to California, it is akin to exporting Utah money, by wire, to the Golden State.

Hatchet Ridge Wind is both a vital clean-energy project for California and a dramatic alteration of eastern Shasta County's beautiful landscape. It is a feel-good environmental project that will help push California toward its goal of producing electricity with fewer fossil fuels. It is also a massive industrial project that will forever alter one of the prettiest landscapes in the north state. With several dozen towers and turbines reaching up to 418 feet tall, the network would dramatically change the views from the Intermountain area and Highway 299. It would also, according to the recently released environmental studies, take an unavoidable toll on migrating birds including eagles (yep, them again) and sandhill cranes.

Although politically popular, technologies such as wind and solar carry heavy liabilities in addition to being two to five times more expensive than average nuclear, coal or gas: -- These technologies are intermittent and volatile - every megawatt will require another megawatt of baseload resources to backfill, support and regulate it. -- They are small-scale and land-intensive - replacing one plant's output (Diablo Canyon) with solar would require more than 25 times the entire U.S. solar output and would require at least 40 square miles of solar panels. -- They require significant new transmission lines across environmentally sensitive and scenic parts of the state.

Evidence is everywhere, though, that the population of California is growing and will continue to grow into the foreseeable future. If we do not create more energy, the per capita amount available will decline. ...Proposed alternate sources of energy - wind, solar or bio-sourced - have their virtues and their shortcomings. To imagine that they would somehow supplant current sources of energy or might be sufficient to supply future demand, is the product of a fervent puerile imagination. (The technical term for this kind of thinking is "scientific sciolism,") ... To date, the execution of the alternate energy resource program has distorted market realities, causing consumer prices to go up directly and indirectly.

The utilities of the US, if not those in many other parts of the world, have pressing needs not just to supply power to energy-hungry consumers. But more than that they must meet both public and political pressures for using renewable energy sources. Apparently heedless of the impact to the environment of the Middle Kingdom and abroad, China commissions a new coal-fired plant every 5 days. Yet in the US there has not been a new coal-fired power plant permitted in about a year. So over time in North America, the older systems are passing away. The question is, what will take their place? To the extent that the public envisions renewable energy systems, the image it holds is of tall poles with windmill systems on top with blades turning. Or there is an expectation of solar systems mounted on rooftops, facing the sun. But these are intermittent sources of energy production. Some of the time - most of the time, really - the wind does not blow. And at least in the nighttime, the sun does not shine. So for each Megawatt of power that moves through the grid, down to meet the load, the requirement is for three megawatts of installed capacity of wind and solar. Build three, get one. In the big picture, this is not a good use of resources.

Wind turbines and radar systems do not get along too well. At least, they haven't to date. Adding 100 more such machines to the hillsides so close to Travis Air Force Base makes military experts nervous. It should make the rest of us very uncomfortable as well, since the base represents more than a billion dollars a year to the local economy. ...We certainly do not want to close the door forever on this renewable energy supply. But at this point, the peril posed to the air base's radar system seems too risky.

Wind power is cheap, but especially capricious in California's rugged terrain and varied climate. Wind turbines spinning like mad during a cool summer's night do little for California's electricity needs while motionless turbine blades on a hot day require the firing up of massive natural gas "peaker" plants that make up for the lack of wind power at a huge cost in fuel and CO2 emissions. And for all of wind's supposed "green" advantages, it takes about 10 times the steel and cement for wind to produce the equivalent amount of power as nuclear does 24/7, even on a calm day.

I think that somewhere along the line, we the payees need to get a refund from someone for a failed experiment called wind power before our bills are quadrupled again.

But as the number of turbines grew into the hundreds and then the thousands, concern arose among residents, adjacent landowners and environmental groups. Wind power can be a viable method of producing electricity, and it is widely considered a clean, safe and reliable source of energy. However, it does have adverse effects in locations such as the San Gorgonio Pass, including the loss of developable land and danger to local wildlife. Wind-energy companies claim that they only use a fraction of the land, leaving the rest as open space. But in essence, modern wind-energy projects involve massive industrialization of undeveloped land. The newer turbines that have been installed in recent years are large, typically 100 meters (330 feet) tall. Indeed, some developers of future projects are proposing turbines that are 125 meters (410 feet) tall. Local homeowners and adjacent landowners are the ones immediately affected, and they are now very active in opposing any new wind-energy projects. Other opposing parties are residential developers and the city of Desert Hot Springs. The latter sees a tangible loss of developable land south of Pierson Boulevard, an area the city is considering annexing for future growth. In addition to the impact wind-energy projects have on land, the structures cause problems in the air as well. The tips of the turbine blades reach speeds of 200 mph to 300 mph, depending on wind speed, which can harm animals. As a result of studies in other areas, such as Altamont Pass near San Francisco, we know that wind-energy systems cause deaths among many species, particularly raptors, owls and other migratory birds. A major concern for environmental groups, including The Sierra Club, is bird and bat mortality.

It may be the time to consider how wind farms fit in with the values which the Wilderness Society represents. If the Society is prepared to go through such a prolonged and worthy fight to save the forests, with all the financial and emotional costs involved, it would be consistent to regard wind farm development with the same scepticism with which it regards the wood chip industry. Both are potent adversaries to the values which I hope we share.

The potential for growth, most analysts argue, is clear. But bottlenecks and political setbacks, not to mention technological glitches, will create many bumps in the road ahead. Indeed, fears that the most euphoric investors were overlooking such obstacles seem to have contributed to a sharp fall in clean-energy stocks earlier this year-although they have since recovered much of the lost ground. Such jitters caused several green-energy firms to cancel planned flotations. “There’s legitimate debate about a couple of segments,” says Keith Raab, boss of Cleantech Venture Network. In some instances, valuations accorded to firms with no profits-and little chance of making any soon-were reminiscent of the excesses of the dotcom bubble. As Douglas Lloyd, of Venture Business Research, puts it, “There’s too much money chasing too few opportunities. How is it possible that this many solar companies are going to succeed? They’re not.”

The temptation for Silicon Valley voters would be to ignore the intricacies of the proposition and simply decide a ``yes'' vote would send a message to oil companies and to the world that California intends to lead the way in developing alternative energy sources. That would be a mistake. We strongly support the concept of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs helping California research and develop technological breakthroughs that will eliminate our foolhardy reliance on Middle East oil. But two fundamental flaws in Proposition 87 force us to recommend a ``no'' vote.

California's power shortage confirms that all of the hoopla over wind energy's credentials as a clean and renewable source of electricity is undercut by the reality of its unreliability. During an extremely hot week in August, when air conditioners were cranked up and the state was on the brink of rolling blackouts, how much help did the state get from its beloved 2,500 megawatts of wind power? Only 4 percent of its capacity, according to the California Independent System Operator, which is responsible for the state's electricity grid. Southern California Edison's 2,200 megawatts of wind capacity generated only 45 megawatts. In other words, wind energy works great — except when you need air conditioning.

ON the way there from L.A., you first pass through the wind farms in the mountain pass and the creepy rows of wind turbines that render the landscape alien and forboding. Harvesting wind energy seems a good idea, but still, the hills seems to have been colonized by some relentlessly churning alien life-form—I felt like I understood the concept of visual pollution at a visceral level. The whirring blades are mesmerizing, in a bad way. They create a delirium of planes and angles shifting and changing in a lulling rhythm, making it impossible to see anything else. It’s a wonder there aren’t more accidents on that winding downhill stretch of the freeway, where it seems like the average traveling speed is around 85 miles per hour.

WHO wouldn't like to hit Big Oil where it hurts - in the wallet? Proposition87, however, could end up costing the state and taxpayers for years to come. While promising to bring in close to a half-billion dollars annually from taxes on oil drilling in California, none of those dollars will go in the treasury. Not one penny will be used to pay down the state's debt, ensure education funding or provide more health insurance to working families. Likely, California's property taxes and corporate income taxes could be reduced if oil producers decide to pump less of the black gold from California fields to avoid the extraction tax. Also, Californians aren't likely to see any immediate benefits from the measure for many years. That's because proceeds from the tax would fuel a $4 billion program for alternative energy research and provide start-up capital for technology companies.