B&Q's wind turbines withdrawn after store admits they failed to produce much electricity. Photograph: Ciaran McCrickard

Well, it's about time. On Friday, the DIY chain B&Q announced that it was withdrawing its micro-wind turbines from sale. I've been campaigning against these windmills since the chain first stocked them in October 2006.

This might seem like an odd thing for an environmentalist to do, but as I've pointed out B&Q greatly exaggerated what these turbines could deliver. I feared both that they would give renewable electricity a bad name and that they would be used by the company to create an excessively rosy impression of its green credentials. I don't think I was wrong on either count.

There were two basic problems with the idea of generating wind power on your own roof, as Tory leader David Cameron discovered when he installed his own, non-B&Q model on his west London rooftop.

The first is that, for obvious reasons, people tend not to live in places (such as deserts, oceans and mountaintops) where supplies of ambient energy are richest. Above most homes, average windspeeds are barely enough to turn the blades let alone generate any more than a flicker of electricity, as Donnacadh McCarthy discovered .

Moreover, people also have the unfortunate habit of living close together. Other buildings create turbulence, as do trees and all such obstacles. Turbulence robs the wind of its power and quickly mashes up a turbine's mechanism. Environmental construction magazine, Building for a Future recommends that wind turbines be placed a minimum of 11m above any obstacle within 100m. You could spot where B&Q's disappointed customers lived by the micro-generators barely protruding above the roofline.

The alternative was to create a minor hazard to aircraft, equipped with sufficient lateral thrust to rip the gable end off your house. Not an attractive prospect in either case. The only likely contribution micro-wind could have made to our energy problem was to infuriate everyone: annoying people misled by their suppliers, enraging people whose homes got damaged and turning mild-mannered neighbours, suffering from the noise of a yawing and stalling windmill, into axe murderers.

I'm astonished that B&Q exposed itself to so many complaints by failing to withdraw the turbines earlier. Perhaps pride got in the way. At any rate, this has been an exercise in proving the blindingly obvious. Eco-conscious people were encouraged to waste money they might otherwise have spent on something useful, like insulation.

Politicians (see for example the disastrous Conservative Party paper on micro-generation) were distracted from sensible policies, like building wind farms where the wind blows. Perhaps the companies that sold this kit meant well, but they have helped to delay the tough decisions we have to make, by promoting a solution that couldn't possibly have worked.

George Monbiot in the Guardian