Green Places - Summer 2005

Angela Kelly wrote this article for the magazine Green Places

During the past 15 years over 1,200 wind turbines have industrialized thousands of hectares of the UK ’s unspoilt countryside.

Their combined total average output is a mere half of one percent of our electricity supply - little more than the equivalent needed to operate the *Anglesey Aluminium factory. But, this supply is only available when the wind is blowing, or not blowing too hard, so its intermittent, unpredictable output must be backed or shadowed at all times with a secure, controllable supply of either  fossil-fuelled electricity which emits more carbon dioxide (CO2), or nuclear plant.

Dr Helmut Alt, chief science engineer of German utility RWE, comments that:  “Even if the wind failed to blow for no more than one hour a year we can't afford to shut down existing plants" - and Germany has over 15,000 wind turbines.

In Denmark , which has an economy heavily dependent on the export of wind turbines, Flemming Nissen head of development at west Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark ’s largest energy utilities), has commented that “Increased development of wind turbines does not reduce Danish CO2 emissions.”

A single jumbo jet, flying from London to Miami and back every day, releases the climate-change equivalent of 520,000 tonnes of CO2 a year . This means that a daily connection between Britain and Florida costs three giant wind farms (George Monbiot, The Guardian, 26th April 2005 ).  Each one would be the size of the Cefn Croes wind power station – the largest in the UK (see News, page 4). Plans are already afoot to extend our airports in anticipation of the doubling of air traffic by 2050. Yet, aviation is the only industry not covered by the Kyoto Protocol which requires countries to cut their fossil fuel emissions.

If the wind industry gets its way, our ancient skylines will be transformed into miles of restless horizons and our beautiful varying landscapes reduced to a common denominator of cloned industrial units. Their gigantic size completely destroys the scale of Nature reducing a majestic oak tree to the size of a bush.

As a painter I love the crepuscular light and have often seen the wild Welsh ponies silhouetted on the skyline when riding over the hills in the late evening or by moonlight.

Gigantic wind turbines with rotating, flickering blades silhouetted against the sky  can cast a tangle of long, moving shadows over the ground in sunlight or moonlight. These, together with the noise, confuse and terrify the horses.

I have seen these menacing shadows and heard the noise of the wind turbines - all the peace and tranquillity has gone and the ‘spirit of place’ utterly destroyed.
This threat is casting its own huge shadow over the lives of thousands of people all over the UK .

The Right Hon Neil Kinnock, the first patron of Country Guardian, summed it up in his speech to oppose a wind power station at Newbridge, Gwent in1994:-

“Wind power is always going to be an additional source of power, an extra cost of provision, never an alternative.    It doesn’t deserve the title of ‘alternative’ because it is simply a surplus on top, by its very nature. . . . this will not be so much be a farm for making energy out of wind as a farm for making a lot of money out of the taxpayer.”

Nothing has changed.  The UK ’s CO2 emissions are still rising at an average of 1.5% a year.  Plus, huge subsidies and hidden costs, gleaned from the unsuspecting taxpayer, create a false market which props up the wind industry and lines the pockets of the developers to the detriment of the environment. In the UK we are paying between two and three times more for windpower than conventional electricity. The headline on the cover of German weekly journal Der Spiegel ( 29 March 2004 ) described it as ‘The Windmill Madness . . .  from the dream of environmentally friendly energy to the highly subsidized devastation of the landscape.’

Good planning is about balance.   The irreparable ecological damage, loss of amenity and distressing divisions within communities caused by commercial wind turbines far outweigh any benefit of their insignificant and unreliable contribution to our energy needs.
The tiny, intermittent output of electricity and the negligible CO2 savings cannot possibly justify the huge sacrifice of that most finite resource -  our unspoilt and unrenewable countryside.  It is our duty to protect our rural heritage for present and future generations from such gross and unnecessary industrialization. The alternative will be a national disaster – no less.  FIN.

-----------------------------------------------------------
 

*  Anglesey Aluminium factory needs 250 MW of a constant reliable, secure, controllable source of electricity.  This must be backed or shadowed at all times with a secure, controllable supply of either  fossil-fuelled electricity which emits more carbon dioxide (CO2), or nuclear plant. The factory employs 570 people and 70 full-time contractors
 

* The Carno wind power station produces an average of 10 Megawatts (unreliable) of electricity and is spread over an area of 1500 acres!  Wylfa nuclear power station, which produces nearly 1,000 Megawatts (reliable) of electricity, covers less than 150 acres. Therefore 100 x Carnos spread over an area of 150,000 acres would be needed just to match the output of Wylfa – it CANNOT REPLACE any nuclear or fossil-fuelled plant.
Birmingham city covers an area of 80sq miles (1 sq. mile = 640 acres) so an area 3 times the size of that city would be needed just to produce 1,000 Megawatts of electricity from 100 x  ‘Carnos’.
That is only ONE FORTY-FIFTH of the UK ’s average need for electricity. It would still need equivalent back-up with fossil-fuelled or nuclear plant.



Landscape Design Trust (LDT) is publisher of Green Places (incorporating Landscape Design), Green Places News, and Garden Design Journal.

LDT is an educational charitable trust whose aim is to stimulate concern for, and understanding of, gardens and landscape.

Visit our website for further information: www.landscape.co.uk
For editorial enquiries, email: ldt@landscape.co.uk
Landscape Design Trust, Bank Chambers, 1 London Road , Redhill,
Surrey , RH1 1LY United Kingdom .