More Wind Turbines In A Spin…

Things are looking bleaker and bleaker for wind-freaks:

Europe's largest onshore windfarm project has been thrown in severe doubt after the RSPB and official government agencies lodged formal objections to the 150-turbine plan, it emerged today.

Oh, dear…

The RSPB heavily criticised the proposal from Viking Energy after initially indicating it could support the scheme. The RSPB also claims now that installation of the turbines could release significant carbon dioxide from the peat bogs affected, undermining the turbines' potential to combat global warming.

The group's fears have been endorsed by the government's official conservation advisers, Scottish Natural Heritage, and SNH has also objected to the "magnitude" of the scheme, claiming it could kill many of these birds through collisions with the 145-metre-high structures.

Eco-freaks vs twitchers. This could get nasty!

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which oversees pollution and waste laws in Scotland, has also formally objected, making it inevitable the scheme will now go to a full public inquiry and intensifying pressure on the developers to alter the scale of the project.

All those government departments joining in the fightback.

This won’t go down well when The Millipede comes back from his hols:

Miliband has said that climate change poses a greater threat to landscapes than windfarms and that opposing them should be "socially unacceptable".

Heh…

Meanwhile, over on the Isle of Wight, some watermelons are learning a lesson in harsh economic reality:

They were given a slice of pizza, an apple and a can of fizzy drink; then the workers holed up inside a wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight noticed something nasty lurking inside their food parcels.

More than a week into their wildcat occupation of the Vestas Wind Systems plant 11 workers opened letters from the management telling them they had been sacked with immediate effect and without compensation.

Well, yes, that happens when you go on strike and occupy your employers property. Welcome to the real world…

Lawyers for Vestas, which plans to shift production of turbine blades to the US, are due to seek a repossession order for the factory in court .

Meanwhile, environmental activists are heading to the island to lend their support in a dispute which has become a symbol of the UK's apparent inability to push through a major expansion in wind power despite the government's recently restated support for the technology.

Numbers joining the "red-green" protests could be significantly boosted after 15,000 people who had bought tickets for the Big Green Gathering festival in Somerset this weekend – cancelled at short notice due to licensing problems – were urged by activists to go to the Isle of Wight instead.

Hippies incoming!

The Dave won’t be pleased to hear this either:

Research published this week by Greenpeace showed that Conservative-run local councils had turned down more than three times as many windfarms as they approved between December 2005 and November 2008. Labour-controlled councils approved marginally more projects than they turned down.

Hmm, it seems that ‘green’ pie in the sky is all very well, until the time comes to make those big decisions. The ones that might result in your removal from office by fed-up voters…

In yet another blow to the technology's spread in the UK, the chief executive of BP reiterated today that the energy giant would not invest in windfarms here.

Tony Hayward said the company preferred to focus on the US.

Stick ‘em outside Congress! There’s plenty of wind generated there…