Notwithstanding the Legislature’s final treatment of Senate Bill 2785 — Gov.Abercrombie’s mega-billion-dollar corporate welfare project to raise our electric rates and reward Castle & Cooke, Hawaiian Electric Co. and Mainland investment banks with the Big Wind interisland cable — the project’s very concept shows how out of touch he is with Hawaii. This nutty idea would be hilarious if it weren’t so potentially dangerous to Hawaii’s finances, economy, tourism, marine and land environments, and cultural and social values. Comprising $4 . . .

Opponents of proposed wind farm projects on Molokai and Lanai said they have more work to do now that the state Senate passed a bill Thursday that would set up the regulatory framework for development of a high-voltage electric transmission undersea cable to link the state into a single power grid. “There’s a long road ahead for us,” said Robin Kaye, a spokesman for the group Friends of Lana’i, which opposes a proposed wind farm project on the island’s north . . .

The wind farms on Maui (The Maui News, April 26) may be a blessing to the people supplying and assembling them, but they are probably a curse to those of us paying for them. I am still waiting for the answer to a question I posed to Maui Electric Co. last year: How much, if any, fuel oil is saved by the use of these wind farms? Since diesel generators cannot be shut down and started up quickly, they are . . .

Apollo Energy Corp., the owner of the defunct Kamaoa Wind Farm off South Point Road on the Big Island, plans to take down all of its 37 rusted and out-of-shape Mitsubishi wind turbines by the end of this week. It then plans to lease the 91 acres of land at the southern tip of the Big Island to cattle ranchers. Details of this new venture are still to be worked out. Steven Pace, CEO of the San Francisco-based company, told . . .

Big Wind is back in the news. Referred to this year as “long extension cords out to windfarms on Molokai and Lanai,” this holdover project from the Lingle Administration continues to drag the State of Hawaii down the wrong path — towards intermittent energy (which will always require back-up fossil fuel generators on standby) instead of firm power — like geothermal, wave and ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). Last year’s attempt (SB367) to provide a regulatory structure that would overcome . . .

News Release from I Aloha Molokai, March 15, 2012 In a big victory for the people of Hawaii, our environment, and all American taxpayers, the U.S. Senate this week killed the Production Tax Credit for industrial wind factories. This corporate subsidy, a major contributor to America’s enormous budget deficits and the cause of environmentally destructive wind projects in many states, was long overdue for defeat. Also defeated was the notorious Section 1603, which gave industrial wind developers 30% of their . . .

The following are comments from the petition to tell Hawai`i state governor Abercrombie and members of the Hawaii State Legislature to stop Big Wind on Lana’i and Moloka’i and to support decentralized energy solutions. Please visit the petition page and sign it. I signed this petition because….. “Because the legacy of the island is all of our responsibility and the wind farm and what gets left afterwards is not something I want to pass on to the keiki of our . . .

State regulators have approved a contract between Boston-based First Wind and Hawaiian Electric Co. for a 69-megawatt wind farm that will be located five miles north of Haleiwa on lands owned by Kamehameha Schools. This is First Wind’s fourth wind farm in Hawaii and will be the state’s largest. It is slated to begin construction this month and be in operation by the end of 2012, according to a statement form Hawaiian Electric. The 30 wind turbines will power approximately . . .

Lanai residents’ anxiety is mounting and Maui County officials are scrambling for information after months of rumors and a recent announcement that Lanai’s billionaire owner, David Murdock, has put the island up for sale. “The anxiety level is quite high because nobody can give any assurance that anything good is going to come out of this,” said Pat Reilly, a retired school counselor and longtime Lanai resident. Murdock has propped up the island’s economy for more than two decades. But . . .

A confidential June, 2009 report by representatives of wind developer First Wind and wind turbine manufacturer Clipper Liberty raised questions about Clipper Liberty wind turbines sited in dozens of wind farms across the United States. Twelve Clipper Liberty turbines were installed in 2010 and early 2011 at the Kahuku Wind Farm at the northern tip of Oahu. Described in an email, posted online by New York State officials, the confidential presentation to New York State regulators provided, “an overview of . . .