Stearns County commissioners this morning decided not to approve the moratorium on large wind energy operations that a number of residents had requested.

In turning down the effort to slow wind energy production, commissioners in one of Minnesota's largest counties also decided to reactivate a committee to watch over the issue and specifically requested that people opposed to wind projects be appointed to help.

That struck me as significant for a couple reasons, especially after I noted in a blog post here last week that I wasn't convinced Stearns County residents had learned much since the 1970s power line war in terms of talking to themselves about energy issues. And there are proposed wind projects all over the map of the 150,000-resident county in central Minnesota.

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Dave Peters, Ground Level from MPR

WASHINGTON - Early last year, wind energy appeared poised for substantial growth, buoyed by a new administration, a push to cut greenhouse gases and dependence on foreign oil, and a Congress with comfortable Democratic majorities.

Today, the industry is on the defensive.

With millions of dollars and thousands of jobs at stake, backers of wind energy hope to regain the momentum they enjoyed a year ago, insisting that proposed "buy American" legislation is misguided and that a national renewable energy requirement remains within reach.

To hear Michael Arquin tell it, he's more of a dreamer than a businessman--and he has a P&L statement showing a modest 8 percent return on revenue to prove it. But that's OK, because he's on a mission to educate teachers and their students about the science of alternative energy, specifically wind power, which means that he provides a sizable chunk of his offerings free of charge.