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

18. Conclusion

Many politicians seem totally convinced that sea level will rise massively within a few decades as a result of ‘global warming’ and use this as justification for ‘green’ measures some of which may be sensible and others such as wind ‘farms’ which seem on critical analysis to be nothing more than money-making ventures as they would have no effect on climate change and sea level even if the worst predictions prove true..

One has to ask in any case whether the ‘warming’ scenarios are believed by the politicians – for example the  Welsh Assembly has just completed its new Cardiff headquarters, almost at sea-level. Governments do not believe their own Day after tomorrow scenarios and yet reiterate the ‘green vote-catcher’, that wind turbines are "essential to tackle global warming"!

We have already seen that wind power cannot in the near future displace more than a few ten-thousandths of world CO₂ emission. Just what would they achieve other than filling a wind power salesman’s order book?

So, returning to our introductory criteria: wind ‘farms’ cannot be developed in sufficient numbers significantly to  reduce CO₂ emissions and they cannot significantly slow the depletion of other fuels nor  produce a reliable and sufficient  amount of electricity to replace nuclear power stations.

It is almost unimaginable that anyone can believe that windmills might change the weather. But many still do!

I close this account with sympathy for the thousands of people, worldwide, who could write, as has the Marton, Askam & Ireleth Windfarm Action Group (MAIWAG): - “The windfarm is noisy, it is a visual blight, it does create shadow flicker, it has resulted in very little benefit to the local economy, it has not resulted in an increase in tourism and negotiating with PowerGen Renewables and Wind Prospect to try to resolve the problems has been a most unpleasant experience for all those involved. Simply put, we want our quality of life back.” (http://www.windfarm.fsnet.co.uk/index.htm ).