The Case against Windfarms

The Case Against Windfarms is an authoritive, referenced document written by Dr John Etherington ( © Dr JR Etherington).

The views expressed are those of the author, who is a professional environmental scientist, formerly Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales. It is freely offered for reproduction or other use providing it is acknowledged. Our website contains the complete document, which consists of 18 Sections, 2 Appendices and References/Notes. The full list is shown on the Home Page, and also at Case Sections

The website also contains a web page devoted each separate section, of which this is one. These pages start with a copy of the relevant section of the full report, followed by links to a series of articles, news items, research papers and reports which are relevant to that topic. Note that these items have been compiled by Country Guardian and are not part of Dr Etherington's paper

Appendix 2.  Calculations for Section 16. Comparisons

 

Energy- saver lamps If switched on for just four hours a day the saving of electricity by one 100 W-equivalent brightness lamp would be 80 W multiplied by (4 x 365) hours - 116.8 kWh per year. With one such lamp per home in the UK, all 24.4 M lamps would save 2850 GWh per year, the equivalent of 325 MW of generation

 

Boeing 747 airliner Each aircraft carries a 150-170 tonne full fuel-load which is burned within a 24 hour operations cycle. It combines with a larger weight of oxygen to produce CO2: -

 

Jet fuel contains c. 86% carbon. Thus 160 x 0.86 = 138 t carbon/24 h. This converts by molecular weight ratio 44/12 to the weight of CO2.

 

Thus a 747 emits, on average, more than 138 x 44/12 = 506 t CO2/24h

 

The installed capacity of Cefn Croes is 58.5 MW. Allowing a generous 30% load factor, and also using BWEA’s exaggerated CO2 equivalence (Section 5.), the 24 hour saving will be: - 58.5 MW x 0.3 x 24 h x 0.86 t CO2/MWh = 362 t CO2/24 h

 

Calculating with the more realistic ‘mixed-fuel’ CO2 displacement (Section 5) this 362 t CO2/24 h would be reduced to 181 t CO2/24 h – thus one aircraft would outweigh almost three huge wind ‘farms’!

 

Truck and car fuel consumption

 

A MAN 40 tonne 5-axle truck returned an over-all consumption of 31.9 litres diesel per 100km in a road test report (Motor Transport magazine, 11 January 2001) and, at 2.68 kg CO2 per litre ( http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/business/envrp/gas/05.htm ), would emit 69 kg  CO2 /hour at 80 km/h.

 

An average sized car would consume much less hydrocarbon fuel, emitting, say, 18 kg to 20 kg CO2 /hour. (NEF CO2 calculator http://www.nef.org.uk/energyadvice/co2calculator.htm)