The everyday miracle of electricity comes at a cost not always revealed by the monthly utility bill -- costs involving dammed rivers, smog, the risks of nuclear power. Wind power seems to offer a way to avoid these costs, but it has run into difficulties on its own. Now new technology may revive hopes for this "clean" energy source. PNS correspondent Yuriko Nagano is a Japanese journalist studying at U.C. Berkeley.

SAN FRANCISCO -- From a distance, the ridgeline of the grassy Altamont hills east of here looks as if it is studded with thousands of pinwheels.

A closer look reveals enormous windmills -- and an even closer look shows many of them are rusting and out of commission.

Altamont is the second largest wind power site in the world. It produces about a billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity each year, enough to power about a third of the homes in San Francisco.

It is also a monument to an ambitious idea -- producing electricity without burning fossil fuel, damming rivers, or turning to atomic energy -- that ran into trouble. Now that idea may take on new life under a plan to replace nearly 1,300 of the 5,400 working turbines with 200 larger units. Total energy output would not change as the new machines produce about seven times as much power as the existing ones.

The new machines look like the old ones, with a tubular tower and three blades, but represent "the latest technologies from Europe and Japan," according to Steven Buckley, a senior planner with Alameda County. Three different developers -- Green Ridge Power, MNR Energy and SeaWest -- propose to spend more than $100 million on the new equipment.

California's new rules, which let consumers choose where to buy their energy, do not affect the project, as the region's major utility, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has agreed to buy all the energy the developers produce for at least the next decade.

The developers do face a deadline -- a federal tax credit of 1.7 cents/kwh ends in June 1999. But the project cannot begin until the two counties affected finish an environmental study.

One major concern is the fact that the turbines now kill many birds, including an average of 49 golden eagles each year, according to the Golden Gate Audubon Society. Developers claim the new turbines, with more space between blades and turning at a much slower rate, will be safer for birds, and some have met with environmentalists to explain this.

"We'd like to see a clean energy source," says Arthur Feinstein, executive director of the Society. "But wind power is not clean if it's dripping in blood. We really hope that their new approach is successful."

Other environmental concerns include noise generated by the rotation of the blades and frequent grass fires caused by electric sparks from the cables on the machines.

Landowners -- many of whom lease their land for grazing -- are somewhat wary about the project. For example, Anthony Castello, 59, is a rancher with 500 wind turbines on his property. SeaWest owns 65 of these, and is proposing to replace them.

"SeaWest has been paying rent, " Castello says. "But I'm not collecting rent from the rest." He is referring to the more than 400 windmills on his land owned by the Arcadian Renewable Power Corp., which went bankrupt and abandoned the machines two years ago.

Investors were drawn to wind power in the early 1980s by generous federal tax credits. To ensure the new industry's survival, the State of California's Public Utilities Commission required PG&E to write 20-30 year contracts agreeing to pay above-market rates for electricity produced at Altamont, in some cases ten times market rates, for the first ten years.

"We were forced to buy that wind energy," PG&E spokesman Jon Tremayne says, "so California could have a diverse mix of energy in the future."

As various contracts pass the ten year mark, however, the amount PG&E pays for wind-power has dropped. Today, about half the producers receive 11 cents/kwh, the rest an average of 3.5 cents/kwh. PG&E claims a fair market price is 1-2 cents/kwh but the American Wind Energy Assn. says the cost of production is 3.5 to 5 cents/kwh, about 80% less than it was 20 years ago.

Abandoned windmills still share Castello's land with his 400 cows. A British company has asked permission to build 45 to 50 new turbines, but Castello says , "I'd like to know more about how good these (new) windmills are because I don't want any more bad machines."

If the new machines prove less troublesome than the old ones, the spirits of those involved with the Altamont project will surely revive.

"The Altamont was traditionally the largest wind farm in the United States and actually in the world," planner Buckley says. "It has shrunk a little bit, but the repowering is basically the means to keep on operating the large wind farm in the next 20 years or so. They are going to give the Altamont a new lease on life."