WE are growing accustomed to the wearisome propaganda that spouts from the
wind industry’s mouthpiece Renewable UK, but its claim that “wind power
provided enough electricity to meet the annual needs of more than 8.25
million homes last year” fails to tell the whole story (“Wind power lights
up 8m homes”, The Herald, January 5). Ofgem, the energy regulator, has
warned that as we continue to shut our old, coal-fired power stations like
Longannet to meet EU CO2 emission targets, Britain’s electricity security
of supply is on a knife-edge. Any surge in energy consumption during a
severe cold snap would plunge the country into blackouts. The reason for
this catastrophic energy shortfall is not difficult to find; under SNP
plans no new nuclear plants will be constructed in Scotland, due to the
refusal of the SNP Government to give planning approval and the hysterical
opposition from the Greens and their fellow-travellers who think the next
Fukushima-style tsunami is about to hit the UK.
Instead, driven by the renewables religion, our country is being blighted
from top to toe with gigantic steel and concrete wind turbines. Already
thousands have been installed across Scotland alone at a cost of over £8
billion, the same cost as a new, state-of-the-art, safe, third generation
nuclear power plant; the only difference being that wind turbines will
produce an unreliable and intermittent trickle of electricity for around 15
to 20 years, while a new nuclear plant will work at 90 per cent efficiency,
producing electricity 24/7 for the next 80 to 90 years.
If we are going to tackle the looming energy crisis then we must also
exploit our massive reserves of shale gas, which would help us to reduce
our dependency on expensive imported gas. With an estimated 200 trillion
cubic feet of shale gas deposits discovered in Lancashire alone, enough to
power Britain for 65 years, we could be looking at the biggest energy find
since North Sea oil in the 1960s. But it is typical of the feverish nature
of the climate change debate in Britain that this massive find has been
either entirely ignored or robustly attacked as anti-green.
Shale gas emits about half the CO2 that burning coal produces, which is why
the US has managed to reduce its CO2 emissions by 500 million tonnes in the
past five years, while EU greenhouse gas emissions continue to soar, as we
pursue the ludicrous and almost entirely useless strategy of building giant
windmills. Carbon emissions in America per capita are now below the levels
they were in 1963 and meanwhile gas is at almost give-away prices,
kick-starting the US economy, boosting jobs and prosperity. Here, because
of huge regressive subsidies for wind turbines, which are passed straight
down the line to the consumers, average electricity and gas bills have
soared to over £1200, driving almost one million Scottish households into
actual fuel poverty. Business and industry are reeling from spiralling fuel
bills, hammering jobs.
So the shale-gas revolution has not only shamed the wind industry by
showing how to cut carbon emissions for real, but it has also blown away
the last vestiges of credibility in the argument that says supplies of
fossil fuels will soon disappear, leaving no alternative but renewables, no
matter what the cost.
Struan Stevenson,
Ballantrae, Girvan.
WE are with the John Muir Trust in congratulating the Scottish Government
for standing by its promise to protect wild land and in wishing to support
the economic development of communities in wild areas, but not by
unacceptable industrialisation (“Concern over block on wind farms planned
for ‘wild land’”, The Herald, January 4).
Wild land protection in Scottish planning policy is recognition of its
value to the wider public – and that it is a rapidly diminishing and
valuable national asset, which already supports sustainable businesses
reliant on tourism and the outdoor activity sector, businesses which have
invested in thousands of already sustainable “local” jobs.
David Gibson,
CEO, Mountaineering Council of Scotland, The Granary, Perth.
IT is interesting that Ian Ross, chairman of Scottish Hatural Heritage
(SNH), is worried by the lack of a gender balance on his board in a piece
in which he also tries to defend SNH’s record on wind farms (“We need more
women on the board, admits heritage boss”, The Herald, January 5)/.
The proliferation of wind turbines in Scotland is an issue close to the
hearts of many Scottish women, not least because women as homemakers and
homeworkers are more heavily impacted by wind turbines close to residences
than men who work away from home. In particular they are more likely to be
in the frontline for the damaging health impacts of turbine noise and
shadow flicker.
The extremely articulate voices of a range of women have led Scotland’s
grassroots anti-wind movement at local, regional and national levels,
although this is not something you will hear the Scottish Government
recognising when they champion gender equality or community empowerment.
Helen McDade of the John Muir Trust has done more than any other
professional, male or female, to defend the Scottish countryside from the
relentless onslaught of wind speculators. She is an obvious candidate for
SNH’s board. Mr Ross should be going down on bended knee.
Linda Holt,
Dreel House, Pittenweem, Anstruther.
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