August 29, 2007
Letters, Wales

Poll refutes claims for wind farms

I write in response to Llywelyn Rhys’s letter (August 23) in which he says that “Popular surveys continually show large support for wind power, particularly in communities that already have wind farms”.

A couple of weeks ago, the Denbighshire Free Press reported that, in its most popular online poll, some 69% of voters were opposed to more wind farms in North Wales. Obviously Mr Rhys didn’t mention this in his letter.

Mr Rhys goes on to say that “At the moment on-shore wind power is the most viable renewable technology that can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions”

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), which employs Mr Rhys, receives over £200,000 each year in sponsorship from wind farm developers such as EON and Gamesa.

It may interest Mr Rhys and your readers to learn that the Forestry Commission Wales has recently stated that although “many recent papers to the National Committee have detailed the development of wind farms on Assembly land no calculation has been made of the true carbon saving of these developments”.

The reality of on-shore wind is that we taxpayers are subsidising an inefficient and unpopular technology that is helping to increase the profits of large, often foreign, companies who don’t care about the impact on the Welsh countryside.

IAN GARDNER
Gwynant, Waen, Nantglyn

Western Mail

29 August 2007


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/08/29/poll-refutes-claims-for-wind-farms/