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Turbines not the answer to our energy needs
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As Chair of the community group, Green Caradon Against Turbines, I welcome the debate that has started on your letters page about the proposed siting of an industrial wind turbine one mile from the centre of Pensilva Village.
Green CATs wants people to be talking about this issue because your correspondent from Landulph, and David Stow, in his column, are exactly right when they ask where our electricity is going to come from in the future.
Neither this turbine nor wind power are the answer. While wind won’t run out, it doesn’t blow all the time. To correct David Stow’s figures it will be 281 feet high, and could only power homes if it worked all the time, whereas the average efficiency is 24.1%.
The current 103 turbines in Cornwall produce only 10.3Mw of the 680Mw needed on a daily basis. Even if everyone had a turbine in their back yard sufficient electricity to meet our constant needs couldn’t be produced locally and we would remain dependent on the national grid and power stations.
Wind power can contribute to our energy needs but it is also in danger of shielding people from the harsh reality that we cannot continue to guzzle electricity, just as we cannot continue to guzzle gas.
Support for wind power as green is in danger of being a symbolic gesture, which provides window dressing for the commercial power companies and landowners seeking the large Government subsidies available for such projects.
Given the mounting medical evidence that living within a mile of a turbine is bad for you health, I would happily see this turbine sited in Landulph, but this is not a joking matter.
Would the children of today thank us for littering their heritage with useless industrial monstrosities, desecrating their landscape and killing wildlife?
Or would they rather we had an informed debate about our energy crisis, and how we can all be part of the solution?
Given that our Liberal Democrat elected representatives at local and national level are in “no comment” mode on this vital issue, Green CATS will be hosting a public awareness and consultation event at the Millennium Centre in the near future. Be there if you are serious about wishing to address the issues. Just to set the record straight, we are not a handful; we have a committee of 20 formed after two public meetings attended by over 200 people, the vast majority being against this proposal.
Danny Mageean
Chair, Green CATs, Redland Farm, Pensilva
6 June 2007
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