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So-called green energy wind farms are steadily becoming ever more dark
Credit: Jim Leitch, The Press & Journal ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
Sir, – In Orkney we were told that a wind farm due to produce electricity for our island for the next 25 years could be considered in environmental terms dark green.
Consider the following, and over their working life decide what shade of green you now think they represent.
• The making of the wind turbines in a foreign country using hydrocarbons and chemicals in the process;
• Transporting them by sea and road from Europe to Orkney;
• The excavation required for new roads, digging up many feet of carbon-retaining peat;
• The crushing of quarried stone, the many hundreds of lorry loads carted to the site for infill for the new roads allowing access to the site;
• The impact and disruption on our roads caused by all these heavy lorries and wide loads;
• The construction of the turbine bases, each many metres in depth and filled with concrete;
• The erection of the turbine towers which required large cranes to be brought in from Scotland, and accommodation and transport for the workforce, with not an electric vehicle in sight;
• The alteration of the landscape and visual impact;
• The construction of the substation and infrastructure required to connect the power to the grid for us to use;
• The loss of farmland;
• Building a new factory to make cables to carry the electricity, felling of carbon-absorbing trees to make the poles and the use of hydrocarbons in the steel-making process of the pylons to support the cables;
• The turbines, with an expected production life of more than 20 years, have worked very well but now require major work to be carried out long before the 20 years has expired;
• The replacement generators and gearboxes made in a foreign country will need to be transported to Orkney by sea and road;
• After the farm’s useful life, or in the case of a serious malfunction, dismantling and erection of turbines taking months will require those large cranes be brought in from the mainland again with transport for the workforce, and probably still not an electric vehicle in sight;
• This will all have to be repeated when the wind farm is decommissioned – and there’s the potential harm to the environment by the disposal of blades into landfill.
Without making this the never-ending story, what shade of green do you now think the wind farm should be? An election has been called and you are free to ask candidates what shade of green the farm is and what their energy plans are and why no one at Westminster or Holyrood seems to care a jot for people north of Perth and their beautiful landscape.
Jim Leitch, Orkney.
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