Children at an island primary were sent home after a newly-installed wind turbine next to their school collapsed, it emerged yesterday. Parents of youngsters at the 18-pupil Raasay Primary School were asked to collect their children following the incident on November 13. The 50ft turbine will "remain out of commission" until an investigation has been carried out.

A remote corner of East County is shaping up as a battleground between companies pushing wind farms as clean and cheap power generators and activists who view them as a blight on the landscape. It has put environmentalists in the position of opposing renewable energy because, they say, it's in the wrong place. Drawing the most attention is a plan by the Spanish conglomerate Iberdrola to build about 100 skyscraper-sized towers in and near the McCain Valley, a federal conservation area abutting Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

The Altamont is the world's oldest wind farm with some 5,000 power-generating turbines covering 50 square miles on the Alameda County border. While generating good green power for the state, it has a bad reputation for killing birds. The wind turbines on the gusty Altamont Pass were installed after the energy crisis in the 1970s. Today, the world's oldest wind farm powers an average of 100,000 homes with clean green energy. But environmentalists say it comes at a steep price.

The battle over a new wind farm in Tehachapi is now heading to the Kern County Board of Supervisors. Kern County planning commissioners approved the Alta-Oak Creek Mojave wind project late Thursday night after hearing both sides of the debate. After hours of emotional testimony from Tehachapi residents, the planning commissioners approved a 9,000 acre wind farm in the small mountain town. It could be the largest wind energy project in California, but it has Tehachapi residents' heads spinning.

A proposal to build a dozen wind turbines, part of a larger project to build as many as 100 in East County, has been denied by the Boulevard planning group. The planning group voted 5-0 last week to reject the wind project, with residents saying they felt it would hurt their property values while providing no benefits to the high desert community. Iberdrola Renewables wants to build turbines that would produce 200 megawatts of electricity.

Hundreds of Tehachapi residents are trying to ban a wind farm from blowing into their part of town, but Kern County may not have legal grounds to stop the San Diego company that wants to build it. The nearly 700 Tehachapi residents have signed a petition against giant wind generators, but it's not because they're anti-environment. It's quite the opposite. They just don't want the wind farms blowing in their back yards. "If you picture a football field spinning in the air, that's how big they will be," Kassandra McQuillen explained.

Six California renewable energy facilities proposed by AES Corp. (AES), FPL Group Inc. (FPL), BrightSource Energy Inc. and Germany's Solar Millennium (S2M.XE) are being fast-tracked for government permits needed to start construction, a federal official said Thursday. Together, the renewable power plants would generate nearly 2,500 megawatts of electricity, and occupy more than 28,000 acres of land, said U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. ...To be eligible for federal stimulus funds renewable energy developers must begin construction by December 2010.

Fifteen years have passed since the historic California Desert Protection Act set aside millions of unspoiled acres as wilderness, elevated Joshua Tree and Death Valley to national park status and created the Mojave National Preserve. The legislation was the largest land conservation bill in the continental United States, hailed for its safekeeping of a long-ignored 6.37 million acres of landscape that counts "singing" sand dunes, volcanic cinder cones and world-class climbing boulders among its attractions. ...Now, proposals are pending for desert landfills, airports, housing developments, renewable energy projects and water harvesting, pushing a new generation to find ways to balance such pressures with the need for open space.

The dirty little secret about the windmill farm at Altamont Pass is that it slaughters thousands of birds every year while politicians turn a blind eye. Four years ago, environmental groups filed suit after the Alameda County Board of Supervisors effectively allowed the farm's several owners to keep killing birds despite evidence that the deaths could be greatly lessened.

The thousand of birds killed by the wind turbines at Altamont Pass tainted the reputation of the renewable energy source. But according to a recent report by the Ventana Wildlife Society and the Stanford Solar and Wind Energy Project, smaller wind-power projects may be able to harvest energy in some parts of Monterey County without harming the endangered California condor. "The condor is the main thing that's been holding up the development of wind-power projects in Monterey County," said John Roitz.

Blades the length of almost two school buses from a wind turbine owned by Akron-Westfield School District rest on the ground while repairs are underway. The turbine's gearbox was also brought down using a tall crane to reach the top of the 11-year-old structure's 165-foot-tall tower, which is much higher than people realize, said Dwain Wilmot, A-W technology coordinator. "You can see Vermillion (S.D.) on a good day," Wilmot said, if you stand on the top of the wind turbine tower. "I've only seen it once or twice."

An entire fleet of around 100 'urban' wind turbines has been remotely shut down by manufacturer Quiet Revolution after the discovery of a design fault. The fleet of QR5 turbines was disabled after continual wind speeds of between 14 and 24 metres per second caused a turbine located on a sea wall in Blackpool to develop a mechanical error, the company said in a statement on Friday. The QR5s have been installed on 55 sites for clients including Network Rail, Sainsbury's and self-storage firm Big Yellow.

Texas cares little for environmental niceties. Its governor, Rick Perry, bashes the Environmental Protection Agency at every opportunity, and recently branded the climate bill that passed the House of Representatives a "legislative monstrosity." Yet the oil-and-gas state has nonetheless emerged as the nation's top producer of a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines. The world's largest wind farm began operations in Texas this month, and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state.

The proposed construction of massive wind and solar energy projects on public land in the California desert would hasten destruction and further fragment land that is home to 17% of state's rarest plants, botanists said Saturday. "Most of the solar and wind projects currently under review are in the wrong places," said Greg Suba, conservation program director for the California Native Plant Society.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's governor, has supported controversial proposals by the California's energy commission to impose strict energy consumption limits on TVs with screens that are more than 40 inches wide. The commission claims that California's estimated 35 million televisions and related gadgets account for about 10 per cent of household energy consumption in the state.

A transformer at the Maple Ridge Wind Farm's substation off Rector Road was destroyed by fire late Monday afternoon. Martinsburg firefighters were dispatched to the substation about 5 p.m. but had to wait until the facility was shut down before extinguishing the blaze, said Lewis County Fire Coordinator James M. Martin. ...The Columbus Day fire was the second transformer fire at the site, with a similar incident occurring July 4, 2007. In that case, 491 gallons of mineral oil leaked from the damaged transformer

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a pair of renewable-energy bills late Sunday, saying that an alternative plan he is pursuing to boost the state's percentage of renewable power sold to 33% is preferable. ...Unlike the vetoed legislation, the new rules won't limit the amount of renewable power California utilities can buy from out-of-state facilities that are too far away to deliver the electricity in real time. Mr. Schwarzenegger agreed ...that restricting out-of-state renewable energy purchases would make it nearly impossible for utilities to meet the 2020 deadline.

Manufacturers of the 190ft high turbine, one of three owned by Sheffield University, are now investigating the damage at the site close to the city's Parkway link road to the M1. A blade on the same turbine was broken 15 months ago and residents who live close to the site at Catcliffe, near Rotherham, have expressed fears that they could pose a danger to local people.

An energy company filed a permit application Friday with San Diego County to develop a wind farm near the community of Boulevard. Iberdrola Renewables said its proposed Tule Wind Power project includes 12 wind turbines, access roads, and a 138-kV transmission line on 1,600 acres of private land near Boulevard in East San Diego County.

A Lompoc couple's attempt to impede an alternative energy project has been denied by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. The board unanimously denied an appeal Sept. 22 that took issue with temporary meteorological towers that are part of a renewable wind-energy project southwest of Lompoc.