I was afraid this was going to happen………….First Announced Casualty of the Financial calamity on Wall Street!
FPL pulls plug on wind project
September 27, 2008 by Amanda Warner in Times Record News
Florida Power & Light Company, a subsidiary of FPL Group, pulled the plug on a 35,000-acre Wilbarger County wind power project this week. The company packed up the $400 million project in light of recent commotion in financial markets and transmission restraints in the area. Nationwide financial turmoil has caused FPL markets to flip and flop, too. “It is certainly our intention to build this project at some point in the future, but that will hinge on several things. Our markets have really changed in the last six months or so,” said Steve Stengel, FPL spokesman. “I can’t give you a time frame on when that would occur

The Hydro Quebec Tender process was the largest such tender ever done, with St-Laurent Énergies consortium winning the largest share of the tender. The development will be equipped with Repower 2MW turbines.

“RES-Americas and our affiliate, RES Canada, look forward to participating through construction and ownership, and helping Quebec meet renewable energy goals,” said Craig Mataczynski, President of RES-Americas. “The immense size of this project speaks volumes to the capabilities and future of our company. We look forward to coming years and bringing the benefits of sustainable wind energy to all corners of North America.”

The project will consist of five wind farms totaling 954MW, enough to power more than 250,000 homes for just under 700,000 people with renewable wind energy. The projected in-service dates for the project range from December 2011 through December 2015. Once completed, the development will represent a total investment exceeding $2 billion.

Minganie, Aguanish Wind Farm – 80 MW
Les Etchemins et Bellechasse, Massif-du-Sud Wind Farm – 150 MW
La Matapédia et La Mitis, Lac-Alfred Wind Farm – 300 MW
Charlevoix et Le Fjord-du-Saguenay, Rivière-du-Moulin Wind Farm – 350 MW
Charlevoix-Est, Clermont Wind Farm – 74 MW
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Renewable Energy Systems Americas (RES-Americas) has been active in the United States since 1997, developing or constructing more than 12% of the operating wind projects in the nation and 20% of the installed wind capacity in Texas alone. In 2007, RES-Americas completed 870 MW at seven project sites in Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

The company is on track to build 1387 MW of wind energy in 2008 throughout Texas, Wyoming, Kansas and Washington that will bring nearly 1,000 construction jobs to local economies and power 375,000 homes. To date, roughly one million people benefit from energy produced by RES-Americas projects.

RES-Americas corporate office is located in Broomfield, CO

Wind energy plan hinges on tax credit
A federal clock is ticking on an ambitious Texas Public Utility Commission plan to build transmission lines to funnel wind energy from West Texas to metropolitan areas. The wind energy industry revolves around a production tax credit that expires Dec. 31. After more than one false start, there is no guarantee Congress will extend it. Expansion will halt, some warn, if lawmakers don’t take action this summer. “We don’t want lines to just be standing out there,” Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham said of the planned transmission lines. Wortham is also director of the West Texas Energy Consortium. Until a turbine is producing juice — no credit.
July 19, 2008 by Trish Choate in Abilene Reporter News
Expansion may halt unless Congress extends program into 2009, some say

A federal clock is ticking on an ambitious Texas Public Utility Commission plan to build transmission lines to funnel wind energy from West Texas to metropolitan areas.

The wind energy industry revolves around a production tax credit that expires Dec. 31. After more than one false start, there is no guarantee Congress will extend it.

Expansion will halt, some warn, if lawmakers don’t take action this summer.

“We don’t want lines to just be standing out there,” Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham said of the planned transmission lines. Wortham is also director of the West Texas Energy Consortium.

Until a turbine is producing juice — no credit.

A wind facility with utility-scale turbines rates a production tax credit of 2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced

I am afraid that the wasted money of Congress will be spent on trying to fix the problem that nobody seemed to know existed until last Thursday before Paulson told Bush that we all going under IF you do NOT act IMMEDIATELY!!!! Well, now in a week, and a 3 page begging proposal, we end up with 100 pages of complete garbage where nobody knows where or how this ends. As one Denver developer so appropriately put the quote””’We are building a plane in mid air not knowing how we fuel it or whether its a bomber or fighter or glider”””……………this Bailout of Wall Street could KNOCK OUT investment into renewable energy sources over time. Time will tell how right or wrong I might be in stating this but I am thinking Congress just torpedoed Wind Energy for the future.

This week the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 6049, which contains an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for small wind systems, an extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for large turbines, and other legislation benefitting renewable energy. The bill overwhelmingly passed the Senate moments ago with a vote of 93 – 2 and is now making its way to the House for a vote. This could be that last opportunity this year for Congress to pass this legislation. The bill includes an eight-year, 30% credit, capped at $4,000 for residential and commercial applications of small wind turbines. Small wind is defined as turbines with rated capacities of 100 kilowatts and less. Please contact your Representative and urge him or her to vote Yes on H.R. 6049.

Higher Returns than Fossil Fuels
By Sam Hopkins | Friday, September 26th, 2008
The sun shined on solar power and other renewable sectors this week.

The House of Representatives’ major renewable energy tax credit bill moved through the Senate and was set to move on to the White House.

HR 6049, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008, had been rejected eight times by the Senate. But the ninth time was the charm, as the bill’s 8-year extension of existing alternative energy tax credits got through with bipartisan approval.

But alas, we Americans know that our representatives never miss an opportunity… to miss an opportunity.

So as of Friday afternoon, House Democrats have scuttled their own bill by introducing a new one, HR 7060, that is weighed down with a provision to pay for renewable tax cuts with money pulled from other sources.

The revenue offsets that the House now wants to cover renewable energy credits may come from tightening loopholes elsewhere in the tax code.

Fiscal conservatives applaud that shift, and budget hawks in both parties are also pushing back against the Paulson bailout plan. But in both cases, they should consider investor confidence as well.

Right now, with the broader market already tilting downward, renewable energy investors should beware the political environment that could allow the solar energy investment tax credit to expire at the end of 2008.

You’ll read more about that from Nick Hodge on Tuesday, after the weekend’s continued negotiations reveal more from Capitol Hill.

We’ve already heard that Al Gore is hard at work on a sequel to his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, but might Leonardo DiCaprio also be planning a follow up to his 11th Hour?

Chalk this one up to rumor folks, but the Chicago Sun-Times is throwing it out there that the 33-year-old actor is working on a new environmental doc — with energy mogul T. Boone Pickens possibly set to finance it.

This would be an interesting pairing. Pickens has recently been in the news due to his “Pickens Plan” — which promotes “alternatives” to oil, including natural gas, wind, and solar. A major part of the plan is “replacing the 22% of its electricity that the United States gets from natural gas with wind energy, which would then allow that natural gas to provide 38% of the nation’s fuel for transportation and reduce its dependence on foreign oil.” He’s also currently deep in plans to build the world’s largest windfarm down in Texas.