Scotsman letters
So, after only 20 years, the everso-sustainable Scottishpower Renewables Whitelee wind farm, sorry subsidy farm, has already reached the end of its short life (your report, 23 July).
The owner’s claim that fewer larger turbines are more efficient is breathtaking, and shame on the Scottish government for falling for the spin! Did our brick-sized mobile phones double or half in size as they became more efficient?
Current turbine blades have been tweaked, over many years, to the nth degree, but the inexorable laws of physics demand that all that can now be done is to make the turbines even larger, even more hungry for materials, even more space-consuming, even more destructive even more difficult to recycle, even more damaging, even more unsightly and, with blades that travel in excess of 200mph, even more lethal to wildlife.
Developers are foisting giant, offshore turbines onto beleaguered rural communities, onshore. Far from boasting about “super” turbines we are in reality being subjected to yet another load of whoppers from the wind industry. George Herraghty
Elgin, Moray
Contrary to your editorial (22 July), electricity is not “the main source of power”.
Indeed, 80 per cent of power is generated by so-called “fossil fuels”, which is one reason why we should be exploiting the North Sea in the same way as Norway does. It also provides employment and taxes, which a certain Ed Miliband clearly doesn’t understand.
In a UK (and Europe) dominated by fatuous nonsense about climate change, it is worthy of note that a huge percentage of “wildfires” are deliberately caused by people. In France alone, it is reckoned to be about 90 per cent of such fires.
Andrew HN Gray
Edinburgh
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