Aileen Jackson asks an excellent question about windfarm development and damage to peat (Letters, 10 August).
I had a quick look at the numbers for Whitelee Windfarm which sits partially in East Renfrewshire and has 2500 kilowatt turbines. Emissions from fossil fuels are around 0.25 kg of CO2 per kWh, so one turbine at full output will save 625 kg of CO2 emissions per hour. Assuming 2000 cubic metres of peat are dug up per turbine (it will likely be a lot less), that’s approximately 400 tonnes of peat (you’d think it would be more for that volume, but peat is remarkably light and fluffy).
Digging up this amount of peat would release 740 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere (peat is around 50 per cent carbon, and one tonne of carbon means 3.7 tonnes of CO2). This means that in around 1200 hours (50 days) at maximum output, a wind turbine at Whitelee will compensate for its site preparation emissions.
It’s important to look into these questions, but in this case the numbers are pretty clear; in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the turbines are worth it. As for people ‘lining their pockets’, I couldn’t agree more – 1.2 million people are now employed in the UK’s low carbon economy, so there are great opportunities for wealth creation and jobs in this important national industry.
A final point: in a recent Nature paper, it was shown that 4,400 tonnes of CO2 emissions will cost one life on average in terms of climate change impacts. So every ten months, at full output, a turbine at Whitelee saves a life through reduced greenhouse gas emissions. There are 215 turbines at Whitelee, so that’s almost one life saved per day. Obviously, the turbines are not always running at full capacity – but the impact is clear.
Dr Matt Aitkenhead, Soil Scientist, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen
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