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Wind Power News: Christopher Booker
Blowing it in the wind
Be afraid, be very afraid, of our politicians’ desperate infatuation with wind. It is going to cost you billions. That’s made clear in an interesting analysis in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph of the numbers in the “world’s largest wind farm” off the Kent coast. The array of 100 turbines, each the height of the Blackpool Tower is touted to produce 300 MW of electricity, enough to power 200,000 homes. If, of course, the wind is blowing. The government’s own statistics showed that . . . Complete story »
A mad vision of a ‘green Gulf’ in the North Sea
Anyone wanting final proof that Gordon Brown lives on another planet should consider his boast to last week’s EU “Mediterranean summit” that “Britain’s North Sea could be the Gulf of the future for offshore wind”. To help Britain meet its EU target of generating 32 per cent of our electricity from “renewables” by 2020, Mr Brown says he wants to see 3,000 giant wind turbines built round our coasts. The “optimum” capacity of an offshore turbine is 3 megawatts (MW), . . . Complete story »
Wind farms must meet targets
Your reporting of the Government’s energy policy focuses on the supply problems that make the building of 7,000 wind turbines onshore and offshore by 2020 infeasible (News & Christopher Booker, June 29). But there is worse hidden in the 267-page consultation document. It largely swallows the industry’s complaint that planning delays for wind energy developments are the root cause of problems in the UK. In fact peer-reviewed literature concludes that planning conditions are similar in Germany, slightly more risky in . . . Complete story »
Look out, Mr Cameron, or we’ll all be in the dark
Since Gordon Brown on Thursday launched what he called “the greatest revolution in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power”, centred on building thousands of new wind turbines, let us start with a simple fact. Nothing conveys the futility of wind power more vividly than this: that all the electricity generated by the 2,000 wind turbines already built in Britain is still less than that produced by a single medium-sized conventional power station. There are nearly 50 nuclear, . . . Complete story »
Not the way to solve our energy crisis
A green revolution…the most drastic change in energy policy for years …a huge opportunity for investment and jobs…Gordon Brown waxes positively lyrical as he hails Labour’s £100billion plan for a vast new array of wind turbines. This one ambitious move, he suggests, will not only cut our dependence on oil, but tackle climate change and ensure our future prosperity. And it would, of course, be wonderful if it turned out like that. But isn’t the Government in fact saddling every . . . Complete story »
A load of hot air: Why spending £100bn on windfarms to please the EU is Labour’s greatest act of lunacy
Today, a giant new wind turbine soars the height of a London tower block above the Mendip hills where I live in Somerset. A perfect symbol of what is arguably the greatest single political madness engulfing Britain today. Although this 330ft monster will produce an income of £500,000 a year for the company that built it – nearly half of it in subsidies paid by all of us through higher electricity bills – the amount of power it contributes to our national . . . Complete story »
Wind power comes to my back yard
Towering over a hilltop near where I live on the Mendips, in Somerset, is a shiny, new 330ft wind turbine – a perfect symbol of the greatest political unreality confronting Britain today. The sole reason that a Government inspector insisted it should be built, overriding all normal planning rules and a unanimous vote by our local council, was that within 12 years, Britain is obliged by the EU to generate nearly two fifths of its electricity from “renewables”, most of it . . . Complete story »
The great wind scam's profitability is equalled only by its futility
It is six years since I first referred here to “the great wind scam” – the bonanza enjoyed by the developers of wind turbines, thanks to the hidden subsidy we all give them through our electricity bills. Under the Government’s Renewables Obligation, they receive twice as much for such electricity as they produce as the owners of conventional power stations: a 100 per cent top-up which makes our wind energy the most heavily subsidised commodity in history. Last week, the Financial . . . Complete story »
Wind farms: millionaire playgrounds for Green fat cats
Energy policy in Great Britain has been a shambles for years. Cowardly governments have turned a blind eye to repeated warnings over prices and supply. Disaster has been avoided thanks only to lucky escapes rather than good stewardship. A case study in the stupidity of the British government’s attitude to energy – aided and abetted by the European Union – is its continuing obsession with wind farms, a so-called sustainable source of energy which is costly, inefficient, unreliable – and . . . Complete story »
Wind power: so much hot air?
The Lewis islanders up in arms against the 181 wind turbines planned for their little slice of Hebrides have many aesthetic reasons to object. Environmentalists are torn between the green windmills, and their supposed threat to the island’s ecology/wildlife. The MoD fears that turbines block radar signals, creating “holes” in the national defence network. But the most powerful argument against wind power comes from Scared to Death, the recent book by Richard North and Christopher Booker. Their study of the . . . Complete story »
