Governors' Wind Energy Coalition

As people begin gathering at next week’s OFFSHORE 2011 conference in Amsterdam, it’s a safe bet that some conversations will focus on a just-released book by the International Energy Agency (IEA) which says wind power, solar power, geothermal energy and other renewables are now the fastest-growing sector of the energy mix.

Renewable energy is surpassing fossil fuels for the first time in new power-plant investments, shaking off setbacks from the financial crisis and an impasse at the United Nations global warming talks.

Several cities, including Minneapolis, St. Louis Park, Maple Grove and Woodbury, have ordinances regulating turbines. But most local government officials have found themselves in uncharted bureaucratic waters with zoning codes and ordinances that weren’t written to regulate renewable energy projects. So the laws provide them with little or no guidance.

Most recently, a broad, nonpartisan coalition of 369 members, including manufacturing, farm and business interests, issued a letter endorsing a four-year extension to the Production Tax Credit (PTC), wind energy’s key federal tax incentive. Legislation recently introduced by Representatives Dave Reichert (R, WA-08) and Earl Blumenauer (D, OR-03) seeks to grant a four-year extension to the existing PTC for wind energy (H.R. 3307, the “American Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit Extension Act”).

A Texas company is aiming to have the nation’s first offshore turbine up and spinning by year’s end, part of a larger push to make the Lone Star State the national leader in marine wind power.

The congressional “supercommittee” might be dead, but that won’t rescue energy spending from deep cuts that loom in the future. It only provides a temporary reprieve, according to observers.

A broad, nonpartisan coalition of 369 members, including wind turbines manufacturing, wind farm and wind power interests, issued a letter endorsing a four year extension to wind energy’s key federal tax incentive.

Across the nation, utilities are looking far afield for wind power, often to satisfy clean energy goals. The practice, which began on the East and West coasts, is becoming common in the Upper Midwest, which some experts believe is poised to become a major exporter of wind power.

When the wind is blowing and the giant blades are rotating, it’s almost hard to pinpoint how close they are, how big they are against the backdrop of green and brown fields dotted with cattle. Some people will tell you that looking at the wind turbines — part of MidAmerican Energy’s Rolling Hills wind project, the largest-ever such project in Iowa — is almost peaceful. Others think they’ve scarred the landscape and are noisy. Just about everyone in this community of about 350 people has an opinion.

The United States would save more than $80 billion over the next 40 years by committing to renewable energy, according to a report released yesterday by the think tank Civil Society Institute.