January 11, 2013
Letters, Wales

Resolve wind farm issues

South Wales Evening Post | January 11, 2013 | www.thisissouthwales.co.uk

Last week’s report on the life span of wind turbines by the Renewable Energy Foundation should make us aware of the possibility that hundreds of derelict wind turbines, coated with indestructible toxic chemicals, will be left rotting on Welsh mountains for hundreds of years.

The report, based on analysis of Danish and UK wind farms, states that wind turbine life span is 10 to 15 years not the 25 years on which financial calculations have been made. By year 12 the electricity output could from a wind turbine is approximately half that of year one, making a nonsense of the claimed reductions in CO² greenhouse gases.

The shorter life span also means that investors will not receive the anticipated 25 years of profits and will be unwilling to renew the clapped out turbines after 10 years. After pocketing huge profits for 10 to 15 years unscrupulous wind farm owners could renege on their agreements to dismantle the turbines and reinstate the environment, for example by placing the ownership of the turbines into worthless “shell” companies and liquidating them. The Assembly has over the years ignored pleas from South Wales Alternatives To Turbines and others to ensure wind farm developers sign up to a ‘performance bond’, an insurance company backed agreement to remove non-working turbines and reinstate the landscape. This report could be the final nail in the coffin of UK wind farms. We now call upon the Assembly to impose a moratorium on wind farms until this is resolved.

John H Jenkins
Bridgend


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/01/11/resolve-wind-farm-issues/