Letters: Windfarms are not the answer

10:51am Wednesday 14th May 2008

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IN COMMON with most green environmental groups, the South Lakes Action on Climate Change entirely misses the point about wind farms and greenhouse gasses (Westmorland Gazette Letters May 9, We need to embrace wind farms'). Wind farms are one of the least effective, most expensive, divisive and disruptive methods for addressing carbon dioxide emissions. By all means campaign to cut carbon emission, but embrace windfarms' - never.

Though wind farms are an advanced form of renewable energy, they are only the best of a poor bunch. UK wind farms generate nothing on 55 to 110 days each year and for 75 per cent of the time when wind speed is below 18mph their output is trivial. It is therefore impossible to turn off coal-fired power stations, which have to be hot and ready to come on line at five minutes' notice in the case of a rapid drop in the wind speed or the breakdown of other power stations.

In terms of climate change, wind farms will always be a failed technology. The Armistead application claims that the wind farm will save' up to 364,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 25 years. This sounds a lot, but should the Government approve the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station it will emit 700,000 tonnes each month, eliminating the lifetime savings of the Armistead wind farm in just two weeks of operation. The same applies to gas-fired power stations though they would take four-six weeks!

The UK reduced its CO2 emissions by ten per cent in 2007. DEFRA says (and I quote): "The decrease resulted from fuel switching from coal to natural gas for electricity generation, combined with lower fossil fuel consumption by households and industry". Not a mention of savings from renewables because they are insignificant!

Turning to visual issues, Dr Khan suggests that '....six turbines by the side of a motorway will not destroy the Cumbrian landscape'. Unfortunately, Dr Khan only tells readers part of the story. Between Lancaster and Tebay, developers are currently assessing six other sites that we know of. If even half these are built, the virtually unspoiled Lune Valley will be littered with wind farms and popular local fells and recreational areas will be degraded - all for two weeks worth of CO2 savings.

Planning guidelines make it clear that wind farms should only be built where the social, economic, cultural, environmental, and landscape issues can be satisfactorily addressed. That is why the Whinash and Hoff Moor applications were rejected at public inquiries and why Armistead should not be built.

No doubt Dr Khan's organisation (SLACC) is supported by sincere and well-intentioned people but they do themselves no favours by burying their heads in the sand. FELLS reject entirely Dr Khan's selective views.

Tim KimberChairman, Friends of Eden Lakeland & Lunesdale Scenery (FELLS)WhittingtonI READ with interest Dr Khan's enthusiastic letter for windfarms, but he fails to give the whole picture.

I find his Opinion Surveys' odd in so much that most people one talks to are very anti-windfarms. I would wish to see the methodology and certified results.

The windfarm at Armistead will comprise of six turbines 330 feet high. Blackpool Tower is only 500 feet high. Do we really wish to see six towering monstrosities in a beautiful rural area? While they will operate for 70 to 80 percent of the time, they will only generate 30 percent of their theoretical output over a year. They will need a back-up' power station ticking over permanently for when they are not working, they only generate at wind speeds over ten mph and are not able to work' in very high winds, such as gales.

We are assured the carbon cost' of manufacture and installation will be paid off in the first three to six months of operation. Note the variable there.

It is not the carbon cost that interests me, but the cost in £1 coins. The subsidies on these things paid out by government to the companies is huge and the costs of erection have been variously estimated to add around £400 per annum to electricity bills - for ever.

Of course it will be pollution free but not cost free. Of course wind power is a proven technology. The problem is it is very unreliable. We do not need it. We need the only non-polluting method of generation. Nuclear energy. Shell is just pulling out of wind-generated energy in the Thames Estuary.

There are also considerable costs and difficulties integrating the power generated into the national Grid. And towers over 60 per cent the height of Blackpool Tower are easily pulled down'? When abandoned, as they will be, they will be left standing as an eyesore and will become a further burden to the taxpayer in their demolition.

I will not burden your columns on a crit' of Dr. Khan's embracing of the UN's Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change. May I suggest to your readers (and Dr Khan) that they read Nature, not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, published by The Heartland Institute, by Professor S. Fred Singer, one of the most distinguished scientists in the U.S. and Professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.

We are being led up the carbon path' by various axe grinders.

Dr Gwilym Edmondson-JonesWindermereI READ Dr Sonny Khan's letter wholeheartedly embracing the plans for the Armistead wind farm. My understanding is that the wind farm application claims that it will power 6,750 homes in South Lakes for on average 80-85 per cent of the time.

If it really is that good, I suggest 1) he turns off his existing nasty carbon-fuelled power supply, 2) moves to Armistead in eager anticipation of all the lovely clean wind power and save the planet with 6749 other deluded people, and 3) tries to switch the lights, TV, cooker, immersion, heating etc on. and 4) wait for the wind to blow.

He'll maybe then realise his folly.

Mike MarczynskiHigh BigginsWITH regard to the letter from Dr Sonny Khan, of South Lakes Action on Climate Change, addressing his support fro "green" credential of windfarms (letters, May 9) The Concise Oxford Dictionary Describes "Green" as follows: "a member or supporter of an environmental group or party"

and: "inexperienced, naïve, gullible".

Brenda Brierley

Dalton-in-Furness