Giant turbines the size of jumbo jets bobbing on the North Sea may soon become as common off Norway as oil and gas platforms.

At least that is the ambition of Norwegian authorities and industry, eager to splash some green on their oily image and use their offshore expertise to corner a potentially lucrative new market – floating wind farms in deep sea waters.

The Guardian

Jorgen Tranberg looks a farmer to his roots: grubby blue overalls, crumpled T-shirt and crinkled, weather-beaten features. His laconic manner, blond hair and black clogs also reveal his Scandinavian origins. Jorgen farms at Norreskifte on Samso, a Danish island famed for its rich, sweet strawberries and delicately flavoured early potatoes. This place is steeped in history – the Vikings built ships and constructed canals here – while modern residents of Copenhagen own dozens of the island’s finer houses.

The Toronto Star Opponents to wind farms in Ontario, at the best of times a local thorn in the side of wind-energy developers, have suddenly realized the benefit of getting organized.

Earlier this week a new anti-wind group called Wind Concerns Ontario, a coalition of 22 small rural groups each fighting their own community battles, announced its creation as a “strong, unified voice of opposition” to provincial plans that would see thousands of industrial wind turbines “tearing apart the very fabric of rural Ontario.”

The Environmental News Network

The credit crunch is not just hurting the banks and the real estate market. Even the billionaire and wind energy enthusiast, T. Boone Pickens is having trouble financing his high profile 4000 MW wind farm. The price tag on this Texas wind farm is a hefty $10 and $12 billion.