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Beware spin from wind power lobby
Credit: The Scotsman, scotsman.com 8 April 2011 ~~
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In response to the report issued on the effectiveness of onshore wind generation (7 April), Scottish Renewables announced that it has “no confidence in these unofficial figures” and yet the report itself makes it quite clear that “the data used originates from the National Grid” and is “accessible to, and verifiable by, anyone with an internet connection”.
Perhaps Scottish Renewables does not have an internet connection. Or perhaps it did not come across the statistics reported last week from the Renewable Energy Foundation and indeed the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which gives credence to the report’s claims.
Scottish Renewables does not stop there; it claims that “companies like these do not invest in technologies that don’t work”.
The point is that they most certainly do, if the subsidies creating their profits are sufficiently large.
Scottish Renewables attempts to justify the industry’s output by pointing out that “no form of electricity works at 100 per cent capacity 100 per cent of the time”. But how many, like onshore wind, work at less than 10 per cent capacity for 33 per cent of the time?
No wonder the members of Scottish Renewables need such large subsidies and no doubt would have us ignore the fact that “energy conservation measures are approximately three times as effective as spending public money on any kind of generation” (John Muir Trust).
A little appreciated point in favour of spending on conservation measures is that they tend to give employment to small local firms rather than give profit to big business.
John Milne
Ardgowan Drive
Uddingston, South Lanarkshire
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