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There had been only eight recorded sightings of the white-throated needletail in the UK since 1846. So when one popped up again on British shores this week, twitchers were understandably excited. A group of 40 enthusiasts dashed to the Hebrides to catch a glimpse of the brown, black and blue bird, which breeds in Asia and winters in Australasia. But instead of being treated to a wildlife spectacle they were left with a horror show when it flew into a wind turbine and was killed.

It happens about once a month here, on the barren foothills of one of America's green-energy boomtowns: A soaring golden eagle slams into a wind farm's spinning turbine and falls, mangled and lifeless, to the ground. Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines.

White goods such as electric ovens would be affected by the proposals to fit all new appliances with sensors that could shut them down when the UK's generators struggle to meet demand for power. The measures proposed by the UK’s National Grid, along with its counterparts in 34 European countries, to install the controversial devices are backed by one of the European Union's most influential energy bodies. They are pushing for the move because green energy sources such as wind farms are less predictable than traditional power stations, increasing the risk of blackouts The proposals are outlined in documents drawn...

A group of 17 Northern Michigan residents have filed a lawsuit claiming a new Consumers Energy wind farm has been making people sick. According to the lawsuit, the $250 million Lake Winds Energy Park wind farm, south of Ludington in Mason County, was built too close to homes. The lawsuit says residents are suffering from dizziness, sleeplessness, headaches and other physical symptoms because of the noise. The 56 turbines (some as far away as a half mile) also are causing vibrations and flickering lights in houses, the lawsuit says. Economic losses are also claimed in the suit. The Shineldecker house...

BP is putting its wind business on the block, its latest retreat from renewable energy as the company moves to focus on its core oil and gas operations. The British oil giant has touted the growth of its wind operations in recent years, but is adjusting “as part of a continuing effort to become a more focused oil and gas company and reposition the company for sustainable growth into the future,” said spokesman Matt Hartwig in an emailed statement. The company has interest in 16 operating wind farms in nine states, including its Sherbino wind farm in West Texas. Just...

Two wind turbines towering above the Cape Cod community of Falmouth, Mass., were intended to produce green energy and savings -- but they've created angst and division, and may now be removed at a high cost as neighbors complain of noise and illness. "It gets to be jet-engine loud," said Falmouth resident Neil Andersen. He and his wife Betsy live just a quarter mile from one of the turbines. They say the impact on their health has been devastating. They're suffering headaches, dizziness and sleep deprivation and often seek to escape the property where they've lived for more than 20...

With the announcement of the indefinite suspension of nuclear refueling of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the White House has signaled a new shift in naval technology - away from costly and potentially hazardous fossil fuels, towards non-toxic and environmentally stable wind power. Not letting Republican obstructionism of the budget process go to waste, President Obama's national defense team is putting together a plan to retrofit US warship with 'tried-and-true' sails, taking advantage of free, naturally occurring wind rather than diesel and nuclear fuels that put crews at constant risk of causing an ecological disaster.

Why subsidize an industry that kills millions of birds and has no environmental benefit? President Obama likes to talk about making sure “the biggest corporations pay their fair share.” Treasury secretary Tim Geithner calls for tax reform to close loopholes and subsidies. Budget hawks say federal spending must be curbed. Congress and federal environmental regulators claim they are doing everything they can to save endangered species. By doing nothing and waiting for December 31 to pass, all of those folks could strike a blow in support of each of these policies. All they have to do is let the federal...

Four years ago, Shell Wind Energy, a unit of the oil company, looked for a suitable site for a wind farm on the Northern California coast. Its scouts found a large acreage — cattle pastures — high on the hills about six miles from the town of Ferndale. They secured permission from the rancher-owners to use the land and announced the project. All hell broke loose. The local weekly in the tight-knit town was flooded with concerned letters to the editor: One of two narrow roads into the hill area carried all the daily traffic of a large hinterland; the...

Masschusetts governor Deval Patrick is as green-power mad as any up-and-coming Democrat, and he has set an ambitious goal for the commonwealth’s utilities: begin producing 2,000 megawatts of power from environmentally preferred sources by 2020. Patrick’s green dreams are way up in the air; on the ground, things look starkly different.Last September in the tiny town of Princeton, Mass., the general manager of the local utility authority sent out an extraordinary little memo that is one part standard bureaucratic posterior-covering and one part cry for help, noting that a modest wind-energy project already has lost nearly $2 million —...

American Superconductor Corp. (AMSC) unveiled plans to reduce the size of its workforce by 25% as weak demand weighs on the wind-energy sector, leading the turbine-systems maker to reduce its fiscal third-quarter outlook. Shares were down 15% at $2.35 in premarket trading. Through Tuesday's close, the stock is down 25% this year. The company cited financing and cash flow issues among customers, which it anticipates will lead to shipment delays for some of its products. American Superconductor now expects a fiscal third-quarter adjusted per-share loss of 31 cents on revenue of more than $20 million, from its prior estimate for...

PORTLAND, Oregon—Because of its variable nature, wind energy is not suited to be the lone or primary source of a grid’s total electricity, according to a new Cascade Policy Institute–Reason Foundation study. If used to produce more than 10-20 percent of a system’s electricity, wind power increases operating costs, due to the need for expensive storage facilities or continuously available CO2-emitting backup power generation facilities.

In fact, a mighty battle is now developing in Germany between green fantasists and practical realists. Because renewable energy must by law have priority in supplying the grid, the owners of conventional power stations, finding they have to run plants unprofitably, are so angry that they are threatening to close many of them down. The government response, astonishingly, has been to propose a new law forcing them to continue running their plants at a loss.

Perhaps coincidentally, Proposal 3, a ballot measure to impose a mandate on Michigan utilities to obtain 25 percent of the electricity they sell from “renewable” sources — read wind turbines — will come before voters just seven weeks before another taxpayer wind subsidy is set to expire. It’s a federal “production tax credit” that gives windmill operators a $22 tax break for every megawatt hour of juice they produce. According to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, this is so generous that during hours of low demand wind producers actually pay grid operators to accept their power, just to get...

The government is effectively subsidizing the killing of federally protected birds, according to a report which highlights a wide range of subsidies given to the wind industry. “If Congress extends the PTC, federal taxpayers will, in effect, be subsidizing the killing of federally protected birds,” writes Robert Bryce, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the report’s author. “Despite numerous violations, the Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — has unofficially exempted the wind industry from prosecution under the Eagle Protection and Migratory Bird Treaty Acts,” Bryce continues. “By exempting the wind industry from prosecution under the...

<p>BOISE -- The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says Idaho Power's long-term purchase agreement with wind farms means that it must buy electricity from the farms even when demand for power is low.</p> <p>The commission's decision, reached Thursday, is good news for Idaho wind farms but a loss for the state's largest utility.</p>

  FAIRFIELD — A Spanish utility that is the world's largest developer of wind power is testing ways to quiet its Herkimer County turbine farm, using a special software that is new to the U.S. Iberdrola Renewables decided to install the new software, which adjusts blade positioning to reduce noise, after tests at its two-year-old, 37-unit Hardscrabble wind project found turbines were exceeding sound limits imposed by the towns of Fairfield and Norway. This is the first use in the U.S. of the quieting software, developed by Gamesa, the Spanish company that built the wind turbines, said Bernard Melewski, a lawyer...

A panel of experts who were appointed to work toward noise level guidelines for wind turbines in Michigan had their work discarded when state bureaucrats didn't like what the panel was coming up with and made up their own rules instead. As a result, there is now no specific state recommended decibel level limit for wind turbines. This means wind turbines can operate at 55 dBA (decibels adjusted to reflect the ear's response to sound), which is the standard Michigan had followed for at least two years. The panel was promoting reducing that level to 40 dBA...

A lack of transparency by top Obama administration officials has prompted an environmental group to sue the Interior Department to determine whether wind power projects are killing large numbers of bats and birds. The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia accusing the government of intentionally withholding the information and refusing to comply with requests for certain documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “It’s ridiculous that Americans have to sue in order to find out what their government is saying to wind companies about our wildlife,” ......

Tiny Pacific nations which are most at threat from rising seas have vowed to dump diesel and other dirty expensive fuels blamed for causing global warming and replace them with clean sources. Using coconut biofuel and solar panels, Tokelau -- which consists of three island dots half way between New Zealand and Hawaii -- plans to become self-sufficient in energy this year.