Q: I travel to the Twin Falls area and have seen 20 new wind turbines just east of Mountain Home. Another nine turbines have been installed west of the operating turbines at Bell Rapids, near Bliss. What can you tell us about them and when they should be operable?

BOB. C., E-MAIL

A: The new wind farms should be operating now, but problems beyond their owners' control have kept that from happening.

The installations you've seen near Mountain Home are the Hot Springs and Bennett Creek wind farms. Each has 10 wind turbines.

At Bliss, there are actually 14 new turbines, comprising the Cassia and Cassia Gulch wind farms. Five of them are a mile or so farther from the road, which could account for your only noticing nine.

Gerald Fleischman, senior energy specialist with the Idaho Office of Energy Resources, was "hoping they'd go on line earlier this year. They got extensions because of delays outside the developers' control."

One delay, he said, involved an unexpected wait for a transformer. Another, more far reaching, was a recall of the blades used in the turbines.

"They recalled 1,250 of them around the world," Fleischman said. "They developed a crack after about a month of operating time."

When they do go on line, the wind farms will nearly double the amount of wind-generated power produced in Idaho, from 75 megawatts to 146.4 megawatts.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that although Idaho is ranked 13th among the states in wind-energy potential, its developed potential has remained virtually unchanged at around 75 megawatts since 2006.

Oregon and Washington - which aren't even in the Top 20 - have developed their resources dramatically during the same time. Oregon has added more than 600 megawatts, Washington almost 900. Even Wyoming and Montana are ahead of us.

That's according to American Wind Energy Association figures as of June 30.

A number of factors are responsible, but the bottom line is a familiar one. Idaho, once again, is being outpaced by its more progressive neighbors.

Send questions to asktim@idahostatesman.com or Ask Tim, The Idaho Statesman, P.O. Box 40, Boise, ID 83707.