November 9, 2007
England, Letters

Windpower is nothing but green tokenism

As an ex-pupil of Newhaven Primary School I was horrified to read your article about wind turbines to be installed across Sussex(The Argus, November 6).

The South East England Development Agency (Seeda) should be renamed the South East England Destruction Agency. They are squandering £10,000 of taxpayers’ money on a study on how to desecrate the Sussex countryside.

West Sussex County Council have clearly been got at by the renewable energy industry and are prepared to destroy the natural heritage of Sussex for the money that windfarms generate, because they certainly don’t generate any reliable electricity.

I could fill your newspaper with the many reasons why windpower is nothing more than “green tokenism”, which last year cost us (the consumer) £600 million in subsidies (renewable obligation certificates and climate change levies).

Suffice to say that Germany has more than 20,000 wind turbines, yet is currently building 26 new coalfired power stations.

I pray that the people of Sussex wake up to the scale of the windfarm scam before it is too late.

Bob Graham, chairman, Highlands Against Windfarms Orton Moray

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# The article on wind turbines in Sussex talked about 750 turbines of three differing size (large, small and smaller) which in total would generate 32 megawatts (MW) and supply power to 15,500 homes.

However, the trouble starts when the average windspeeds for Sussex quoted in the article are taken into account.

The 32MW is the power generated when the windspeed is in the order of 30-35mph. If we take a speed of 16mph the power generated would only be in the order of 4MW, enough power to supply 6,250 homes.

The subsidies, taxpayers money, for the 700 smaller and small turbines alone would be around £1.7 million so maybe the total would be £5 million plus.

Looking at these facts anybody, other than politicians of all parties, would see that wind turbines are a waste of money but then politicians are never wrong although we often later hear that time-honoured phrase “lessons will be learnt”.

Brian Beck, Highdown Road Lewes

The Argus

9 November 2007


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2007/11/09/windpower-is-nothing-but-green-tokenism/