Wind Power requires massive funding from the taxpayer; THAT'S FUNDED BY YOU
Despite the above, Developers are destroying large tracts of English countryside, with the eager co-operation of the landowners, primarily to cash in on the distorted financial market created by misguided Government dogma and huge subsidies using our tax payers' money.
Have a look at Cefn Croes in Wales to see what we mean ----- and our own "Graphics" page.
THERE SIMPLY IS NO MORAL, COMMERCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL OR RATIONAL BASIS FOR LARGE SCALE WIND POWER STATIONS IN DORSET OR ANYWHERE ELSE
So why are they being built?
The question is not:“Why are we objecting?”
The REAL question is:
“Why aren’t you objecting?”
Some reading that further supports the points made above
FORCE 10 -- Political Will verses Landscape Protection. 4.3Mb) Elizabeth Mann's superb full length book on the wind industry
versus those who fight to protect our landscapes from industrialisation. Also available from Wind-Farm.org
FORCE
10 Companion Guide The New Lambton Wyrm.
(4.8Mb) Elizabeth Mann's companion guide to her full length book on
the wind industry.
“Windfarms
- Rape of the countryside or salvation of the world?" (85kB)
This article goes to the heart of the debate about the role of wind
energy in electricity generation. Reproduced by kind permission of the
author, Dr Mike Hall, FRSC, FIBiol.
“Environmentally
unfriendly wind power - a personal view." (105kB) Independent
consultant Dr. Vic Mason has updated his devastating economic
and environmental critique of wind power, fully referenced. "Environmentally
unfriendly wind power" shows that windpower is a dead-end technology
for UK power supply. Copyright: Dr. V.C. Mason & Country Guardian.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author and sourced from The
Country Guardian.
"Danish
wind power a personal view" Independent consultant Dr. Vic
Mason has written this new and well researched article, "Danish wind
power – a personal view ". Copyright: Dr. V.C. Mason & Country Guardian.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author and sourced from The
Country Guardian.
"West
Danish wind power - lessons for the UK © by Dr. V. C. Mason"
Independent consultant Dr. Vic Mason has written this new and well researched
article, "West Danish wind power – lessons for the UK” .
©Copyright: Dr. V.C. Mason & Country Guardian. Reproduced
by kind permission of the author and sourced from The
Country Guardian.
“W.Turbines
Civils.pdf" A letter to DART
in response to our December 2003 newsletter showing the (large scale)
civil engineering implications of installing a wind farm. For 9
wind turbines we are talking in the order of a 1000 x 20 tonne lorry
journeys. Three times that for both developments! Plus the same
again at the end of their working life. Reproduced here by kind permission
of the author.
"The
Renewable Energy Debate & Wind Power." A general overview
by Tony Dalton.
DART's
Own Presentation. Our presentation of the issues - March 2004.
White
elephant Huge footprint, trickle of electricity. No savings
on greenhouse gases, no savings on our oil-gas imports. No increase
in total power supply. No diversification of energy sources.
Property Values
- April 21st 2005 Press and Journal: WINDFARM PROTESTERS FAIL TO WIN SUPPORT...total property prices in Edinbane could dwindle by as much as £4million, based on 50 properties worth an average of £200,000 falling in value by 40%.
- March 12th 2005: £100,000
of the value off the property "The estate agent now says
it would knock £100,000 off the value of the property if the turbine
gets built. My view is that we won't be able to sell it at all.”
Story by kind permission of Yorkshire today.
- January 26th 2005: My
property nightmare: wind farm A new wind farm could knock
thousand of pounds off the value of Richard and Lynne Lethbridge's
home, writes Christine Webb. ...Fearing that the 100m-high turbines
near Goveton would get the go-ahead, the couple asked two estate agents
to value their home. They were devastated to learn that it had dropped
£165,000...
- January 11th 2005: VALUES
HAVE GONE DOWN When the sad news came through that a wind
farm was proposed for Rhos Garn Whilgarn, Mydroilyn, near Lampeter,
the first thing I did was contact an estate agent from Carmarthen
for a valuation of our property...
- January 2005: Property
Devaluation by the 10 turbine wind power station at Rhos Garn,
Mydroilyn, Ceredigion. "Turbines are good for the community?"
Really?
- 9th January 2004: A judgment has awarded a property owner 20%
of the previous value of a house in compensation. .
- Disturbance. There will be thousands
of heavy traffic movements and road works and closures of the
A 31 to enable the exceptional, 150 feet (50 M) long vehicles that
deliver the turbine blades to get to the Lower Winterborne site.
- Wind turbines produce a small amount of power, about 25% of their
rated ("name plate") output, as they produce electricity intermittently. Mains electricity
cannot be stored effectively, so wind turbines must be backed up by
gas, coal or nuclear power stations in which the generators must be
kept spinning and consuming fuel so that they are available to service
the electricity demand when the wind drops.
- 1,125 turbines currently provide 0.45% (less than on one hundredth [1/100]) of the UK requirement [with an average load factor of 24.1%
(DTI figures for 2003)].
- 10,000 modern turbines (300 feet or more in height) would be required for about 10% (one tenth [1/10] ) of the UK requirement.
- 26th February 2005 The Guardian: Report
doubts future of wind power Wind farms are an expensive and inefficient way of generating sustainable energy, according to a study from Germany, the world's leading producer of wind energy. The report, which may have ramifications for the UK's rapidly growing wind farm industry, concludes that instead of spending billions on building new wind turbines, the emphasis should be on making houses more energy efficient. Drawn up by the German government's energy agency, it says that wind farms prove a costly form of reducing greenhouse gases.
- 17th February 2005 The Daily Telegraph: Emissions
trading could add 20pc to power bills Europe's
new emissions trading scheme will force up customers' electricity bills
by 15pc to 20pc, according to City analysts trying to assess its impact.
The rises will follow a 30pc increase in wholesale electricity prices
across Europe by 2013, research from investment bank UBS shows, and
will be steeper for commercial customers.
- <15th February 2005: The
All Wales Energy Group Expresses Concern over Financial Cost of Wind
Farms According to the NAO onshore wind
is over subsidised by approximately 33% as currently around three quarters
of the income of a wind-farm is from indirect consumer subsidy. The
result is an over-emphasis on the construction of onshore wind, and
an almost total neglect of more complicated technologies requiring skilled
development.
- 12th February 2005: Wind
farms 'pushing up price of electricity' Many wind farm operators
are getting huge profits as part of a Government environmental policy
that is also pushing up electricity prices, financial watchdogs say
today.
- 6th February 2005: Wind
farms will inflate electricity bills, power expert warns.
ELECTRICITY bills for average families will soar by £200 a year
because of plans to introduce hundreds of wind farms across the
country, according to the former chief of ScottishPower.
- 30th
January 2005: Germany
shelves report on high cost of wind farm-produced energy A
damning report warning that wind-farm programmes will greatly increase
energy costs and that "greenhouse gases" can be reduced easily by
conventional methods has been shelved.
-
See NOWAP's explanation of the Renewable
Obligation Certificate system of indirect subsidy.)
- In Denmark
which has the biggest proportion of wind turbines the price
of electricity has doubled.
- In
March 2004 The Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) issued a report
critical of the costings claimed by the wind power industry. This
shows that even with costing-in carbon taxation, on and off-shore
wind is more expensive than other forms of generation. The full report
is available now on www.raeng.org.uk
- The
Royal Academy of Engineering report, The Costs of Generating Electricity
(March 2004), estimated that wind power onshore and offshore
were the most expensive form of generating electricity, at over 5p
per kWh and 7p per kWh respectively, as compared to
say coal and gas, which in their various forms are just under 2p
per kWh or just over 3p per kWh.
- An
average wind power station might earn 30%
of its income from electricity sales and 70% from indirect subsidy
(figure calculated on the basis of data in The Renewables Obligation:
Ofgem’s first annual report, February 2004, and other official
figures from Ofgem and the Non-Fossil Purchasing Agency Ltd.).
- The
subsidy systems are already funded by an increase of 2%
on consumers' bills, according to the National Audit
Office and unless policy is changed this
is set to rise substantially.
Other European Experience
- Click
on the Danish Eltra website, click on "Production,
consumption, exchange" on the right. You get a very interesting
map, updated every minute or so, showing actual wind energy usage
in Denmark at any given moment. Fascinating, very handy to show the
sudden variations in wind power.
- Denmark
has the most
experience with wind turbine electricity generation and now
has such problems with the stability of the distribution system
and the cost of power that the government has slashed subsidies and
the
incentive to install more wind turbines has disappeared.
In Germany public anger is growing against the proliferation of wind
power stations throughout the country and the business community is
complaining about the increasing cost of electricity affecting the
competitiveness of German industry.
Danish Wind. Too good
to be true? David J. White, Independent Consultant, assesses
the true cost of wind energy generation in Europe in his Utilities
Magazine article.
- March 2007. Not least becuase CO2 is not the issue. See CO2: The Greatest Scientific
Scandal of Our Time by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.
- May 2006. Polar Bears on Thin Ice? Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really! by H. Sterling Burnett.
A new NCPA study by Dr. David Legates, director of the University of Delaware's Center for Climatic Research and state climatologist, examines the claim that global warming threatens to cause polar bear extinction and finds little basis for fear. By and large, the study finds that polar bear populations are in good shape.
As the figure shows, population patterns do not show a temperature-linked decline:
* Only two of the distinct population groups, accounting for about 16.4 percent of the total population, are decreasing.
* Ten populations, approximately 45.4 percent of the total number, are stable.
* Another two populations — about 13.6 percent of the total number of polar bears — are increasing.
- 27th February
2005: The Scotsman: Experts
show official wind power claims are hot air CONTROVERSIAL plans
to build thousands of wind turbines across Scotland will make almost
no difference to greenhouse gas levels, according to new research by
leading environmental scientists. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
says that even on the most optimistic assumptions, renewable sources
of energy, such as wind power, will have only a "minor impact" on reducing
carbon dioxide emissions.
- Flooding
Concept called off - New facts from the Maldives A telling report
from Nils-Axel Mörner (Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University,
Stockholm, S-10691 Sweden.) ...Very soon, and to our great surprise,
we found out that sea level is by no means in the process of rising
in the Maldives today. In the 1970ies, sea level even fell significantly.
Our story is duplicated from island to island. We measure it by different
means. And, we listen to what the local people had to say. Always
the same results: (1) sea level is not rising, and (2) it fell in the
70ies.
- Global
Climate Change and Solar Variability. A discussion posted on a
Usenet newsgroup relating to climate change and solar variability.
The first author is Mike Flaugher, who proposes the belief that global
climate change is caused by solar variability.
- Neither
the IPCC, nor the NAS, have actually confirmed that human-caused
climate change or global
warming is a serious problem.
Aircraft vapour trails have a bigger effect than "CO2".
The advocates of global warming often ignore the whole earth satellite
data that show a slight cooling over the past 18 years. The United Nations'
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) omitted satellite data
in its report released last summer, the one used to justify measures
to combat global warming. The IPCC relied instead on climate models
which are notoriously inaccurate, particularly when it comes to factoring
in the effects of water vapour (over 90% of the greenhouse effect)
and cloud cover on global temperatures. The
Kyoto agreement is also seriously flawed. See also a "POST
MORTEM" on the Kyoto agreement by
Fred Singer.
- Currently
1,125 turbines generate 0.45% of our electricity in the UK. (Source
BWEA Website).
- Assuming
the UK achieved it's target of 10% of electricity from renewable sources
i.e. wind (say using about 10,000 turbines)
- Power
stations emit a 30% (about 1/3) of our total CO2 emission, so reduction
of the UK total CO2 emission would be 2-3% (nearly a 25% [1/4] of the
generation is CO2 free nuclear and would not be displaced by wind).
- The
UK is responsible for about 2.6% of world CO2 emission (UK CO2 emission
from UK Energy in Brief (DTI 2003) ratioed against world CO2 emission
from Encyclopedia Britannica).
- So
the reduction of global CO2 emissions by UK wind power would be considerably
less than 0.1% (1/1000) (currently global CO2 savings from wind power
are about one ten thousandth or 0.01%).
- There
is no possibility that the saving of CO2 emission by UK wind power could
measurably alter world atmospheric CO2 concentration, let alone reduce
it by one third or more, which the climate modelers say we need to do,
to make a difference.
- Sir
John Houghton, co-Chair of IPCC's Scientific Assessment Working Group,
told the Welsh Assembly Government in 2002, that if all CO2 emission
was immediately stopped world-wide, "adverse effects would continue
to increase for the next 50-100 years.
- There
are no solid grounds for assuming "global warming" demands
immediate and far-reaching action. It certainly does not justify any
action (immediate or otherwise) that has no measurable effect.
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