Wind farming problems

Not a good day for the purveyors of finest continental bird slicers. According to the BBC,

The Welsh Assembly Government announced in 2005 that four terawatt hours of power would come from renewable energy by 2010, but it has produced three.

They whinge on abpout how they wanted to build more wind farms but were unabvle to do so... Awww diddums, however The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales director one Peter Ogden hits the windmill on its sails,

the assembly government had grabbed the "cheapest and most convenient ways of satisfying their own pangs of renewable energy guilt, without having any regard to the bitter after taste these massive intrusions leave on the Welsh uplands".

He added: "Their track record clearly indicates that their push to develop onshore wind was badly organised, misdirected and has ended up in such a tangle that it proves just how wrong the TAN 8 approach has been.

"We have constantly argued against the industrial-scale mutilation of the uplands of Wales and are calling on all the political parties to scrap TAN 8."

He added that officials claimed to be on target for 2020, but there were no transmissions lines in parts of Wales to get the power to the National Grid, and this seemed to have been "conveniently overlooked".

Which is somewhat foolish one might have thought. Meanwhile as Richard North highlights there have been some problems in North Britain with the slicers,

Kintyre wind farm firm goes bust

Amusingly, the Beeb illustrates both stories with the same, rather sombre turbine image.