The West Virginia Gazette is reporting that 14 people were given tickets today while protesting Massey Energy’s  plans to blast apart Coal River Mountain in Southern West Virginia. Massey Energy has plans to mine at least 6,000 acres of the mountain, almost 10 square miles.

This morning, five activists chained themselves to bulldozers at a Massey Energy strip-mining operation in protest. A sixth person was also cited, even after identifying themselves to police as a member of the press. Another eight were cited after they delivered a letter to Massey Energy President Don Blankenship, but then refused to leave the Massey property.

The group, who call themselves “Climate Ground Zero and Appalachian Mountain Justice” and have who run  the Coal River Wind Project campaign,  are attempting to stop Massey’s mountaintop removal plans. The group hopes that a wind farm would be put at the site instead.

At the mining site, the activists hung one banner that said, “Windmills, Not Toxic Spills” and attached windmill blades to an excavator at the Massey operation.

“They shouldn’t allow the wind potential on Coal River Mountain to be destroyed, and the nearby communities endangered, for only 17 years of coal,” activist Rory McIlmoil said. “There is a better way to develop the mountain and strengthen the local economy that will create lasting jobs and tax revenues for this county, and that’s with wind power.”

A new wind farm is being built in Kenya that will be large enough to produce a full 30% of the country’s energy needs. Kenya has experienced a growing demand for power with an average increase of 8% per year.

The Kenyan wind farm will produce 300 megawatts of power and is a private venture which is seeing about 30% of the cost coming from the African Development Bank.

This adoption of wind energy and other forms of renewable energy in Kenya and throughout Africa is great to see since it offers hope that Africans will bypass the whole stage of dirty power and get right into renewable forms like geothermal power plants and wind and solar energy.

President Barack Obama faces a real political bind. Senator Edward Kennedy, who was an early backer of Obama and who suffered a seizure at his inauguration, is on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to a Cape Cod wind farm, Cape Wind.

Kennedy, a resident of Nantucket, has fought against the wind farm for eight years, arguing that it will cause radar interference to boats and planes, hurt wildlife and hinder the ocean views from Cape Cod, and has sued to stop the project. Kennedy owns an oceanside home that would have a direct view of the proposed 125 wind turbines that would stand 440 feet above sea level. However, Kennedy maintains that his spoiled view is not why he opposes the project.

However, a strong advocate for Cape Wind is Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a close friend of Obama. Patrick believes that this wind farm will be instrumental in making  his state a leader in alternative energy.

Obama has made it known that he is also a strong supporter of wind power. Obama pledged that the nation would “harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories” in his inaugural address. He also visited an Ohio wind turbine factory.

“There would have to be some extraordinary reason to not make a favorable decision, aside from deference to Ted Kennedy,” a project ally told the media. “And if deference to Ted Kennedy is what delays this project, this means that deference is being paid by the president himself—and [that he’s] doing so at the expense of his pledges on energy policy.”

Canadian provincial governments have been making a big push to help wind energy flourish. The most recent example comes out of Ontario which just signed contracts to build six large wind farms. The farms will provide nearly 500 more megawatts to for the province.

While this is great news for the wind energy industry the sector is still looking for more assistance from next week’s federal budget.

This recent push into wind power started last year when Quebec approved $5.5 billion in wind power projects in the province. Enough to provide 2,000 megawatts by 2015.

Then it was Manitoba Hydro’s turn as they signed a deal to buy power from a 300 megawatt wind farm (the largest in Canada) for the next 25 years.

Beautiful British Columbia will be next since they are expected to approve as much as 1,000 megawatts worth of renewable energy contracts in the spring, much of which will be provided by wind farms.

This has proved invaluable to the wind power industry since securing such long-term contracts since it allows the companies to ease investor’s fears by providing the security of guaranteed income over an extended period.

Last night Spain beat it’s wind power peak performance record with 11,175 megawatts, breaking its record of 10,880 set in April of 2008.

Spanish wind farms also set a record for the amount of electricity they produced in a given day with 234,059 megawatt-hours – amounting to an impressive 26 percent of the countries power demand.

Spain has been one of the leaders in wind power growth along with the U.S. and China. Although it is dismally behind the greenhouse gas emission levels called for by the Kyoto protocol, it is working hard to meet them via wind power.

Currently wind farms in Spain produce approximately 16K megawatts, but the government’s aggressive foray into the wind power industry means that they expect that number to climb to 20K by 2010 and 40K by 2020.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has set a goal of developing 2,000 megawatts of wind power capacity by 2020.

“With the growing interest in wind turbines we see in communities across the Commonwealth [of Massachusetts] and the abundant wind resource we have off our coast, wind power is going to be a centerpiece of the clean energy economy we are creating for Massachusetts,” said Patrick.

It is expected that an offshore facility will make up part of the 2,000 MW, with the U.S. Minerals Management Service this week, with the release of its favorable environmental impact statement on the Cape Wind project.

Massachusetts and Texas have been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for two Wind Technology Testing Centers in the country. The Governor noted how this move will not only make Massachusetts and Texas hubs for wind power research, but also boost the potential economic gain of technology development, entrepreneurship and jobs.

If the plans of Scottish Power Renewables are accepted, the largest wind farm in Scotland will see the addition of another 45 wind turbines. The energy output of the wind farm would be sufficient to power every household in Glasgow.

With 176 wind turbines Whitelee is already the biggest onshore wind farm in Europe. With the size of the project some groups are coming forward with concerns about further expansion.

“These turbines are so big that they are visible over a very wide area.” Davie Black of Ramblers Scotland said in a statement to the BBC.

“There is a fear that if developments like Whitelee are allowed to expand then a lot of the hillsides across Scotland will end up covered, and you will not be able to get the long open views that you expect in Scotland because of these turbines popping up.”

The local residents and interested parties will be examining the proposal and asking questions this week.

This week will see the opening of Maine’s second wind energy farm. The new 57-megawatt wind farm will provide the energy equivalent of the power required for 23,500 homes.

The wind farm, known as the Stetson Project, was developed by First Wind with a total of 38 wind turbines strung along a low mountain ridgeline in Eastern Maine. Combined with the previously built wind energy farm, also by First Wind, almost 100 megawatts of power will be produced.

First Wind has stated that the amount of oil required to produce that much energy would be 331,000 which would contribute 76,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

With the opening of the Stetson Project, Stetson II is already working on getting its permits. Stetson II would add an additional 17 wind turbines onto the project.

Currently in the construction phase and planned for operation next year is TransCanada’s  even larger project in Western Main. The 44-turbine wind energy farm will produce an additional 132 megawatts.

All of these and more wind energy projects are steps close to achieving the goals laid out by the Governors Task Force on Wind Power Development which is calling for a minimum of 2,000 megawatts of power derived from wind energy by 2015.

The proposed 130-turbine wind farm off the coast of Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts, earned a victory today when the federal agency that oversees it released a favorable environmental impact statement. Cape Wind, which has been under review since 2001, has faced some resistance from opponents who say it may cause radar interference to boats and planes, hurt wildlife and hinder the ocean views from Cape Cod. Opponents including Senator Edward Kennedy have sued to stop the project.

However, today was a big step for Cape Wind, whose plan is to place the towers about five miles off the shore and  provide three-quarters of the Cape and Islands’ electricity.

“We are going through the document now, and it does appear to be a favorable document,” said Mark Rodgers, communications director for Cape Wind.

Jim Gordon, Cape Wind’s president, said that construction could begin late this year, and that the wind farm could be producing electricity by the end of 2011.

Gordon said, “We think this wind farm is going to be embraced by the Cape Cod community, it’s going to be embraced by the nation and, most important, it has already encouraged other states to look at developing their own coastal wind resources.”