Jul 7 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Jared Paben The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash.

It's a giant lawn mower blade. No, a propeller for a humongous ship. A helicopter rotor?

Actually, those 125-foot blades that have been rolling through Spokane on Interstate 90 on the back of specially designed semitrucks are blades for several large power-generating turbine projects that are going up in the Northwest.

Every day for the past five or six months, two blades have traveled from North Dakota through Spokane en route to a large wind project near Bickleton, in south-central Washington, according to the trucking company hired to move the blades.

If you see similar blades traveling east, that's because they're coming from Olympia through Spokane on their way to Alberta, Canada, for another wind project, said Nichole Weaver, a permit coordinator for that company, Anderson Trucking Service. Those blades are loading about once a week, she said.

"There's several (projects) going on around the state. Of course we've been issuing the permits so they can run legally along the freeways," said Jim Stuart, administrator of commercial vehicle services for the Washington state Department of Transportation.

The blades traveling the state's highways reflect an increased emphasis on wind power in the Northwest and across the country.

At one large project, 11 miles east of Ellensburg and visible to Interstate 90 travelers, 13 of the planned 127 turbines have been built, according to Puget Sound Energy, the Seattle-based power company that owns the project. When complete, officials there estimate the Wild Horse Wind Project will be able to generate enough electricity to power 70,000 homes.

Completed turbines are expected to start generating power later this month, said Roger Garratt, director of resource acquisition for Puget Sound Energy.

"One of the special features about this is also not only that it's a large wind farm, but (it's) owned directly by the utility," said Christine Real de Azua, a spokeswoman for the American Wind Energy Association. Utilities most commonly purchase wind energy from privately owned fields, she said.

Puget Sound Energy also owns an 83-turbine project in southeast Washington called the Hopkins Ridge Wind Project.

The Big Horn Wind Project near Bickleton will have roughly the same power-generating capacity as the Wild Horse Wind Project.

According to the AWEA, Washington ranked seventh in the nation in the amount of power generated by wind, behind New Mexico. California led the ranking. The largest single field in the nation, with nearly 400 turbines, is the Stateline Wind Project, located on the Washington-Oregon border.

Wind energy still accounts for less than 1 percent of the power used nationwide, but it's growing quickly. Last year, wind energy ranked No. 2 in terms of the amount of the country's newly added power-generating capacity, according to the AWEA. Natural gas was No. 1.