Green energy cost
The Times | 1 October 2012
Tom Delay (letter, Sept 28) says that the UK can benefit economically by investing £110 billion in offshore wind farms. However, there is evidence which shows that investing in largescale wind turbines could be disastrous. Studies by European and US power engineers have concluded that wind turbines do not reduce CO2 emissions to any significant extent, if at all. Back-up gas-turbine power stations use gas very inefficiently because of their constantly fluctuating mode of operation as they compensate for unpredictable variations in the power output from the wind farms.
Back-up stations consume about the same amount of gas as they would if all the wind farms were switched off, with the back-up stations supplying the varying power demands from the grid.
James Allan
Hartlepool, Co Durham
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2012/10/01/green-energy-cost/