More Opposition to Wind Turbines

The lyricist Sir Tim Rice has criticized the government for backing wind turbine schemes, describing them as a scam.

This is backed up by a recent report by Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University, who found wind energy to be roughly ten times the price of gas.

Other reports on wind energy during the last 18 months (by Bentek Energy of Colorado, by A.F.Consult for KPMG, by the Adam Smith Institute, and by Stuart Young Consulting) contain similar conclusions.


A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said earlier this month (Daily Mail, 7 Mar) that developing wind power will mean the UK is less reliant on imported gas.


This is untrue.

The reason: increasing the number of wind turbines leads to increased dependency on imported gas, because extra gas-fired power stations have to be built for when the wind doesn't blow.

The same spokesman also said that wind will be a crucial part of new energy capacity, and that carbon capture and new nuclear were essential parts of the mix.

However, with onshore wind ten times the price of gas, there is no evidence to support the assertion that wind is 'crucial' to this or any other energy policy.

As for offshore wind, that's even more expensive; my guess is that it's about twice the price of onshore wind. Note that government intends most of our turbines to be offshore.

So much for our 'austerity drive'.

The comment on carbon capture is simply wrong. The technology has been demonstrated in several countries to be unworkable. Carbon Capture has effectively been dead in the UK since the collapse of the Longannet scheme.

One wonders if DECC is aware of this.

30 Mar 12



FOOTNOTE......Chris Huhne, who was in charge of energy policy at the time, made the following comment about Carbon Capture....“If there was a completely unlimited resource then we may have been able to surmount the technical problems at Longannet".

As I've said before: you couldn't make it up.

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