The Solway Firth is at the centre of £500 million proposals to build a mile-long dam between England and Scotland fitted with energy-generating turbines, the Sunday Herald can reveal. The proposed tidal barrage, subject of a £60,000-£100,000 feasibility study commissioned by Scottish Enterprise, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Northwest Regional Development Agency (NRDA), would stretch over the River Solway from Annan in Dumfries & Galloway to Bowness-on-Solway in Cumbria.

The world's two most powerful wind turbines, with blades up to 500ft in diameter, are to be built on the Northumberland coast in clear view of northeast England's most renowned shorelines. ...The two machines are planned to be up to 650ft high, including their blades. At that height they would be more than 200ft taller than the current tallest turbines in Britain. ...Each could generate up to 7.5 mega-watts of power.

Research which could transform worldwide production of large-scale wind turbines is being carried out at the University of Nottingham. Peter Schubel is leading a £1.4m project called Airpower which could make it eight per cent cheaper and 11% faster to manufacture the blades. ...Dr Schubel said large-scale blades were extremely labour intensive to produce under current methods - with up to 35 people at any one time working on a single blade. This also means there can be high levels of waste because of human error.

Britain's first mobile wind farm could be built off the Scottish coast under an ambitious plan to stop turbines blighting the countryside by mooring them miles out to sea. Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is in talks with Blue H, a Dutch company, to build a floating turbine platform that would be anchored to the seabed between Skye and the Uists. If the pilot scheme is successful, dozens more could be sited off the Scottish coast, thanks to new technology that allows turbines to be moored in waters up to 1,000ft deep. The new generation of turbines - which resemble small oil rigs - can be towed so far out to sea that they cannot be seen from the shore. ..."We want to get this technology working because Scotland's continental shelf drops off very quickly and we have very limited potential for shallow offshore wind. ..."

Turbines shuddering to a halt across the region in heavy winds are yet another flaw of wind power, opposition groups claimed last night. The structures cease to operate when wind speeds reach a certain level and do not generate electricity. Many wind farms shut down at 55mph, and some at 33mph. Figures released by the Met Office show that in February wind speeds reached 91 miles per hour in Newcastle, 79 mph at Boulmer, near Alnwick and 77 mph at Albemarle in Northumberland. But operators of wind farms in the North East have confirmed that with these strong gusts, there have been occasions when their turbines have been brought to a standstill.

A cable that brings power ashore from an offshore windfarm has failed and needs to be replaced in the spring. E.on, the firm that owns Scroby Sands windfarm two kilometres off the Norfolk coast at Caister, said one of its three high-voltage cables had failed. This means that if the wind turbines are working at full capacity only 66% of the power can be brought ashore. E.on's other off-shore windfarm at Blyth, Northumberland, is also awaiting repair after a sub-sea cable broke. ..."As we move forward we learn how the equipment interacts with the environment. That's part of the learning process. A statement to the BBC released on behalf of energy minister Malcolm Wicks, said that off-shore windfarms were an emerging technology and that subsidising and investing in more was not a waste of money.

Home wind turbines are significantly underperforming and in the worst cases generating less than the electricity needed to power a single lightbulb, according to the biggest study of its kind carried out in Britain. An interim report revealed that homeowners could be being misled by the official figures for wind speeds because they are consistently overestimating how much wind there is - sometimes finding that real speeds are only one third of those forecast. In the worst case scenario, the figures indicate that it would take more than 15 years to generate enough 'clean' energy to compensate for the manufacture of the turbine in the first place.

Plans to build the country's biggest wind turbine off the Northumberland coast are set to be approved by councillors. If approved the project will see seven new turbines on the north site of the River Blyth to replace the existing Blyth Harbour wind farm. Six of the turbines will tower 125m from base to blade tip while the seventh, planned for the Battleship Wharf site at Cambois, would measure a total of 163m in height - the country's biggest to date. ...Blyth Valley Borough Council has already said it will not object to the project. The turbines will be more than three times bigger than the current structures and much more powerful.

Volume house builder Barratt Developments has published preliminary findings from its experimental ‘eco village’ project in Chorley, Lancashire – a 15 month long test of how effectively ‘green’ technologies can be incorporated into new homes. ...wind turbines were judged ‘disappointing’. Both the 1.7m and 1m turbine performed below the theoretical available output based on the recorded wind speed throughout the trial period. Simple payback period analysis has not been carried out.

report into the handling of a planning application to build Lincolnshire's biggest wind farm has been released. Planners at East Lindsey District Council made a catalogue of errors in dealing with the 20-turbine wind farm at Conisholme. It was first refused and then later approved by East Lindsey District planners in 2005.

Rising high above the water, the two gleaming white structures look like an outsize art installation. But they have a more practical purpose: Each is a giant wind turbine, part of a British project that could prove a breakthrough for wind power around the globe. Among the dwindling oil and gas fields of the North Sea, Britain has built the world's biggest wind turbines -- each has blades longer than a football field -- in the Moray Firth, a large inlet off the rugged east coast of Scotland. What's unusual about the effort is its dimensions: While existing offshore wind projects tend to be in shallow waters close to the coast, the Moray Firth venture is expected to culminate in the first offshore wind farm in deep water (150 feet) far from land (15 miles). ...So far, even in Scotland, offshore wind is in its infancy. There are only 1,200 megawatts of offshore wind-power capacity installed globally, with Denmark, the world leader, accounting for about a third of that. Britain, with 400 megawatts, is in second place, but has big ambitions.

THE State Government's five mini wind turbines were put on city roofs as a political exercise and will not work effectively, a key association says. Alternative Technology Association SA branch president Alan Strickland has offered to put the Government in touch with experts who are prepared to assist with proper placement of the turbines. "I believe this has been a political exercise that wasn't properly thought out," he said. ...Each turbine is supposed to produce 1.5kW - or between a third to a half of a household's electricity requirements - under the right conditions.

A new generation of super-size wind farm could be on its way to a field near you. General Electric is developing wind turbines with blades longer than the tip-to-tip wingspan of a jumbo jet. In a move likely to dismay activists who view wind farms as a blot on the landscape, the American company has taken the wraps off a project to develop power-generating windmills with blades of 70 metres - some 75% longer than the typical existing length of 40 metres. ...There was a hostile reaction yesterday from British campaigners who have fought wind farms on the grounds of their appearance, noise and economic viability. Angela Kelly, chairman of the pressure group Country Guardian, said she was "horrified" by jumbo jet-sized windmill blades and described the prospect as an "absolute disaster".

MEMBERS of the public have the opportunity to hear first hand about the results of a study that looks at the capacity for wind energy in the south and west of Berwick-upon-Tweed area of Northumberland. ...The study used the award-winning methodology developed to assess the landscape capacity to absorb wind development, which can be used to help inform decisions on planning applications.

THE nightmare of digging coal underground, suffered by generations of Welsh colliers, could soon be a thing of the past with Wales tipped to benefit from a new mining technology. Experts claim underground coal gasification could create tens of thousands of jobs across Britain, particularly in coal-rich places like Wales. The process involves drilling bore holes into coal seams, pushing steam and oxygen into one hole and drawing out the hot gas from another. It means not a single lump of solid coal would leave the ground. ..."Wind farms are definitely not the answer but clean coal definitely could be. There is enough underground to satisfy the UK's energy needs for many years."

... wind energy farms are not a simple panacea for the country's energy problems. Last week the Beatrice turbines were being serviced but, if they had been operational, they would not have been turning. The North Sea's winds were virtually non-existent, meaning no power would have been generated. Opponents say such variability of output is a drawback of wind energy. But O'Brien insisted: 'If we can build big turbines far away from the shore, they will cause minimum upset and disruption. This is their future and that is why the Beatrice project is so important.'

Tidal power generated from more than 200 turbines in a 10-mile barrage across the Severn estuary could provide nearly 5% of Britain's energy for 120 years ...one of the most ambitious civil engineering challenges in the world, would significantly affect the visual and marine environment more than 30 miles around it and have mixed long term economic and ecological impacts, according to a report from the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).

Clipper's latest turbine concept, which is expected to move into the testing phase in 2009 or 2010, is based around a 7.5 megawatt machine. The turbine, which would be placed on a 115metre-high tower and have a diameter of 150m, is designed to be located offshore, where winds tend to be stronger and planning restrictions less strict. But Mr Dehlsen [Clipper's CEO] is realistic about the limits of wind power to replace carbon-based energy sources such as coal, oil and gas. "The US Department of Energy said that you would need to cover four states with wind farms to supply America's energy needs," he admits. So while wind has a role to play, Mr Dehlsen accepts that any genuine attempt to tackle climate change must be much more holistic.

Clipper Windpower shares had the wind taken out of their sails this morning after the wind turbine manufacturer revealed problems with the quality of components used in its turbines. Clipper said problems with drivetrain assemblies have temporarily slowed turbine shipments.

Tidal power pioneers in the North-East yesterday set out their stall in the "green" battle with wind farms. Inventors such as former Swan Hunter naval architect Graham Mackie and his Evopod are bidding for a slice of a £50m Government fund to develop electricity from the ebb and flow of the tide. While battles have raged over the building of wind farms in the region, using tidal and wave power has lagged behind. But that changed yesterday when the only independent large-scale tidal testing facility in Europe went into operation.