SO Storm Erik got the wind turbines turning at last and trade association
RenewableUK’s executive director Emma Pinchbeck came out of the traps at
full gallop extolling the wonderment that is consumer-subsidised wind power
(“Storm brings energy record”, The Herald, February 13). She enthused that
“at one of the coldest times of the year, when we need it most, wind is
generating over a third of Britain’s power needs, setting a new clean
energy record’.
This predictable haste in telling us how lucky we are to be over-deploying
on industrial wind just because thousands of turbines have managed a
half-decent attempt at supplying us with some unreliable power is beginning
to insult the public’s intelligence.
Where was all this wind power before Erik rocked up? Ms Pinchbeck omits to
tell us that image-shattering nugget. From my home in the Highlands it was
freezing cold for several days and not a puff was to be had. The turbines
wherever we saw them stood idle, frozen in time quietly drawing energy from
the grid to keep their hundreds of litres of oil fluid and the mechanism at
working temperature for when Erik or one of his windy buddies turns up.
Ms Pinchbeck continued: “Onshore wind is already the cheapest source of new
power in the UK and can make a major contribution to meeting our carbon
reduction targets and keeping bills down.”
That sounds all fine and dandy until you drill down into the detail. If you
added the cost for the necessary 24/7 back-up required for unreliable wind
it’s not quite so cheap after all. If you added in the carbon footprint of
this required stand-by generation and the grid connection for often-remote
wind farms any emissions savings claims would be highly dubious. As for
keeping bills down, this is where we are all being taken for fools. We all
see our electricity costs rocket year on year as we pay for the wind
subsidies, extortionate constraints payments and extensive grid upgrades
needed for volatile wind. I wonder how many consumers would willingly pay
these charges if they had a choice?
Lyndsey Ward,
Darach Brae, Beauly.
IT has been announced that the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, Hornsea
One off the coast of Yorkshire, is now supplying electricity to the Grid.
It is taking the record over from the previous largest offshore windfarm,
which was off Cumbria.
Hornsea One is the first of four giant offshore wind farms planned for the
area. It is being developed by a Danish company and the turbines will be
supplied by Siemens.
Hornsea One will receive a strike price of over £155/MWh, three times the
normal market price for electricity. This subsidy arrangement is more than
double the unit subsidy for all of Scotland’s onshore wind farms.
You have a correspondent from Castle Douglas who never tires of writing to
The Herald pointing out that “big generous” England pays 90 per cent of the
subsidy for Scotland’s wind farms, so could I draw his attention to the
fact that under the GB electricity subsidy levelisation arrangement “small
poor” Scotland will pay around 10 per cent of this massive Hornsea One
subsidy cost; and indeed all other electricity subsidies in England.
However, if Scotland became independent we would not have to pay these
massive costs.
Nick Dekker,
1 Nairn Way, Cumbernauld.
THE public are harangued on a daily basis by the climate industry. An
industry is what it is and they are collecting their salaries, grants,
research payments, subsidies and lecture tour fees. The UK public are told
what they must do to prevent an apocalypse and the world burning to a
crisp. Stop eating meat, give up your car, do not fly and do not wash. Ok I
made up the last one.
Meanwhile in the real world China’s methane emissions are rising at an
alarming rate especially so since methane traps 28 times more heat than
carbon dioxide.
China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal.
Methane is released from coal mining yet China is opening more mines and
building more coal-fired power plants in China and planning and financing
mines and coal-fired plants in other countries of the world.
The climate industry people should go to China on an emissions lecture tour
and give us all a break from their disaster theories. Remember their
theories introduced punitive green taxes which have cost the UK industry
and the public £8.6 billion every year.
Clark Cross,
138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.
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