It seems North Carolina is still confused about wind energy. We know we have a terrific wind resource in the mountains, and wonderful winds along our coast, but we have yet to harness them for electricity production.

At the 2010 Annual State Energy Office Conference, Gov. Perdue said she was "as green as anyone else" but unsure about both offshore wind and offshore drilling.

That was before the gulf coast became awash with oil.

North Carolina's wind industry was badly bruised by a poorly implemented turbine in Boone 30 years ago. With huge metal blades it made a lot of noise and disrupted the television signals of the good people around it.

The reality is that you can hold a conversation beneath today's turbines without raising your voice.

Today most of North Carolina's wind conversation is populated with myths, some perpetrated by our "investor owned utilities" (I.OUs). They take out ads in newspapers like this asking what you think of wind energy.

While the rest of the world decommissions their nuclear plants in favor of wind turbines, and while other states' wind industry explodes as the fastest-growing sector of their economies, North Carolinians are worrying about the effects of turbines on migratory birds.

The reality is migratory birds fly around wind turbines. I too worry about birds, which is why I think cats should be kept indoors. Picture windows kill more birds than wind turbines ever will.

Our IOUs like to suggest that wind is intermittent. True. Turbines don't make electricity when the wind isn't blowing. So what? When the wind is blowing the grid can be filled with electrons from wind. And when the wind stops we can fire up the coal and natural gas plants that we use now.

Today we take fossil fuels out of the earth's crust, run them through our power plants, and park the exhaust in our atmosphere. There is no reason we can't take a break from that when the wind is blowing.

Apparently some people don't like to look at wind turbines. I find them sculptural, majestic, and comforting to watch - reminding me of the clean energy future that is possible - but not everyone shares that view. Thanks in part to the Boone turbine debacle; North Carolina passed a "Ridge Law" banning turbines on scenic vistas in the mountains. On the other side of the border Tennessee is commissioning turbine after turbine while North Carolina protects its view sheds. The great irony is that our mountain air has become so polluted that our views are vanishing anyway.

I live in Chatham County, in the shadow of the Shearon Harris nuclear plant. Perhaps some people find it comforting, but I would rather see wind turbines in the distance. With wind turbines, we wouldn't need "evacuation instructions" at all of our canoe launches and in our elementary schools.

Today, Duke Energy and UNC are taking a stab at three turbines down east. Which means we might figure out how to permit them, and connect them, and get some green electrons onto our grid. That's good news.

No one seems to notice that we are almost the last ones on the planet to harness the wind. When it comes to renewable energy, North Carolina typically leads only in its desire to "lead."