Wind-Farm Carbon
A letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph from Simon Davidson
of Cardiff: (12 Dec 06)
Sir - Your report (DT December 9th) says that wind farms fail to
produce enough electricity, and that the turbine at the
HQ of Renewable Energy Systems produces 7.7% of the
maximum possible.
You reported the managing director as saying 'each unit
is zero carbon and you can't get better than that'.
Can't you? He does not say how much carbon was produced in
manufacturing the useless machine, transporting it
and making the huge concrete base it has to sit on.
If you take all this into account, each unit of
electricity will create more carbon dioxide than the
worst coal-fired power station.
ND comment - I have seen papers written by
energy professionals saying that wind power costs around
4p a unit. However I have not found any measured data, on the
internet or elsewhere, to support
this claim. If you aware of such data, I would like to hear from
you. It would be interesting to check the figures.
Nigel Deacon / Habitat21 website
