Letters

In an open letter to John Swinney, signed by 18 environmental and civic groups including Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, he was asked to stop the increasing level of plastic pollution in Scotland (Scotsman, 4 August).

It is quite ironic that just days before, permission was given for the world’s largest wind farm consisting of 307 turbines at Berwick Bank. These turbines will have plastic components: plastic coating on the copper wires and the turbine blades are made of

polymer composite materials – plastics within which fibres or particles are embedded as reinforcement. These blades cannot be recycled but end up in landfill. With 100,000 tons of turbine blades disposed of annually in theuk and 329,000 wind turbines globally there is a huge environmental problem that Friends of the Earth etc dare not mention.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow, West Lothian

I recently read in horror that the Berwick Bank wind farm array had been provisionally approved despite the number of complaints and the fact that it will kill thousands of seabirds, (some breeds of which are in decline), due to the relative proximity of the array to their breeding sites.

I can also only assume that the decision-makers have not seen, or totally ignored the figures being produced on the Octopus Energy “UK’S Wasted Windpower tracker” site which not only shows that as I write, to date this year more than £716m in wind power has been wasted but also that the nearby Seagreen array (also owned by SSE) has been closed down 71 per cent of the time because the grid cannot handle the amount of energy generated in higher wind situations. Although producing nothing, SSE is paid millions of pounds in “constraints payments” which are added to every electrical bill.

It is widely accepted that Scotland has a major issue with the amount of energy it can handle from its wind farms and that this issue will take years to resolve. In the interim adding another extremely large array, which will only increase energy bills and kill thousands of seabirds when it is operating, is sheer madness.

Ralph Bebbington

Crediton, Devon

I agree with the granting of consent to Berwick Bank wind farm.

Two correspondents to your letters page (2 August) mention an estimate of 31,000 bird deaths over the wind farm’s 30-year life span. This is about 1,033 a year, averaging 2.83 bird deaths a day. For perspective, estimates of the number of garden birds killed by domestic cats in the UK each year are in a range of 40 to 70 million. The Mammal Society’s study in 2003 estimated UK cats kill 55 million birds annually. That’s an average of 150,684 bird deaths a day. The Civil Aviation Authority’s 2017 report on “Wildlife hazard management at aerodromes” shows that where deterrence fails to reduce the risk of birds to aircraft, birds will be shot. So human desires to have cats and to fly in aircraft have priority over the lives of birds.

SSE Renewables said on 31 July that Berwick Bank has secured two connection points, at Dunbar and Blyth in Northumberland, to the UK electricity grid, and the trade association Renewable UK said on 31 July “the approval of Berwick Bank Offshore Wind Farm is a pivotal milestone for Britain’s energy transition”. Berwick Bank wind farm will benefit people in Scotland and England, and I think many of your correspondents and readers will agree with that.

E Campbell

Newton Mearns, East

Renfrewshire