| Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005. |
Wind Power News: Christopher Booker
Brussels steps in — to stop a wind farm
A delightful row has blown up in Scotland over the plan to erect 181 600ft wind turbines on the Hebridean island of Lewis. For years we have been told how this largest onshore windfarm in Britain was going to help the UK to meet its now mandatory EU target to produce 20 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 – even though the 200 megawatts of electricity the turbines would intermittently produce represents only a quarter of the output . . . Complete story »
EU plans to see our economy blown away
It was appropriate that, just as our MPs were voting last week to hand over yet more of the power to run this country in the EU treaty, the EU itself should be unveiling easily the most ambitious example yet of how it uses the powers we have already given away. The proposals for “fighting climate change” announced on Wednesday by an array of EU commissioners make Stalin’s Five-Year Plans look like a model of practical politics. Few might guess, . . . Complete story »
Britain has never concocted a crazier plan
Last week, amid the clouds of self-righteous humbug billowing out from Bali, Gordon Brown committed us to what I do not hesitate to call the maddest single decision ever made by British ministers. It was announced by John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, that we are to build 7,000 giant offshore wind turbines round Britain’s coast by 2020, to meet our EU target on renewable energy. It will be the largest concentration of such industrial . . . Complete story »
Nowhere is safe from turbines
The only thing to come from the efforts of the people of North Devon who opposed the Fullabrook Down wind farm development is a clearer message to us of what the rest of the South West is up against in trying to preserve our landscape. We can now all see that a government inspector has his remit and could just as well have written his judgment out as a standard form, ready to pass out to all of us, and . . . Complete story »
Storm of protest over turbines gathers force
A Government inspector gave the go-ahead last month to 10 giant wind turbines at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex, famous for its 7th-century Anglo-Saxon chapel, the oldest in Britain. Each 400ft turbine will be as high as Salisbury Cathedral, visible for miles. The scheme was opposed by almost everyone in the area, including Maldon council, whose head of planning, James Doe, said: “Once built, the windfarm will change the historic landscape of the area for years to come, with historic landmarks such . . . Complete story »
The E.U.'s wind power self-deception
Anyone who keeps half an eye on the world energy scene might have been seriously baffled by some of the recent news from Europe. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement on climate change, no government in the world has been proclaiming its desire to save the planet from the evils of global warming more loudly than the European Union, now representing 27 nations. The E.U. has pledged, for instance, to go far beyond its agreed Kyoto targets for reducing its . . . Complete story »
Government wakes up to nuclear future
The most important document issued by the Government for a long time was last week’s 343-page White Paper on the future of Britain’s energy supplies. Half of it is pure, mad fantasy. The other half, at the back, represents a belated injection of common sense for which we may all one day be extremely grateful. For a long time now it has been obvious to anyone looking at the figures that Britain is headed for a catastrophic energy crisis within . . . Complete story »
Is it surprising terrorist tactics have hit Norfolk?
‘Rural terrorists” was how a company described the protesters who destroyed a 280ft anemometer mast, built to test wind speeds for yet another clump of giant wind turbines in Norfolk. “People have a democratic right to complain,” said a spokesman for the Marshland St James wind consortium, “but this was a criminal act.” No doubt it was, but one reason people might be tempted to commit such criminal acts is that the Government, in its zeal to see thousands more . . . Complete story »
Scotland's beauty will be sacrificed to 'renewable' fantasy
Although there is little interest south of the border in the lacklustre campaign for next month’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, something so odd is going on there that it has implications for us all. Fired by the fashionable obsession with global warming, the Scottish parties are all vying to see who can make the most extreme promises about how much Scotland should rely on renewable energy. The Labour-led Scottish Executive is already pledged to produce 40 per cent of . . . Complete story »
Turbines sacrifice beauty to futility
Muriel Goodman last week looked out across fields towards Dartmoor from the Georgian manor house where she and her husband run an upmarket bed and breakfast business, feeling sick to the pit of her stomach. Within a year, thanks to a decision announced on Monday, her guests, if she has any, will be looking out on nine colossal 394ft wind turbines barely a mile away, each the height of Salisbury Cathedral’s spire. The decision that such a huge industrial installation . . . Complete story »
