The UK is waking up when it's too late, it is not too late here

As I drove across the causeway that connects my village with the larger town I could see far across the bay to the farmlands that are becoming windfarms. It looked as if they were marching straight into our town of Rockport. We are in an essential flyway for birds, we have whooping cranes and sandhill cranes which are large vulnerable birds. Please do not let them get any closer.

Wind power: Even worse than you thought
But your 'leccy bill will keep going up to buy more of it

A new analysis of wind energy supplied to the UK National Grid in recent years has shown that wind farms produce significantly less electricity than had been thought, and that they cause more problems for the Grid than had been believed.

The report (28-page PDF/944 KB) was commissioned by conservation charity the John Muir Trust and carried out by consulting engineer Stuart Young. It measured electricity actually metered as being delivered to the National Grid.

In general it tends to be assumed that a wind farm will generate an average of 30 per cent of its maximum capacity over time. However the new study shows that this is actually untrue, with the turbines measured by the Grid turning in performances which were significantly worse:

Average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.