Library

This page contains links to a number of documents written by well-known authors, journalists, scientists, engineers, economists, environmentalists and other experts, many of which are referenced from other pages under other topics. The links are brought together here because each of the authors takes a considered overview on the windfarm problem, but each takes it from a different angle and from a position of various types of expertise. There are also a number of poems written in protest at the destruction of the environment by windfarms.

Witnesses for the Prosecution

The absurdity and tragedy of exploiting people's desire for a better world by degrading the landscape with windfarms has been identified by many writers, journalists, conservationists and others. Here is a selection of their contributions.

Columnist and former editor of The Times Simon Jenkins has written several articles in that paper attacking windfarms. He has just been commended at the 2001 Orwell Awards for political writing. The judge said "Simon Jenkins's columns had passion, bite, flashes of brilliance and, in true Orwellian spirit, a powerful dissenting streak in almost every paragraph"

Simon Jenkins is a worthy critic of the stiffling dogmatic orthodoxy of the windfarm lobby.

In March 2001 he wrote "How Green are our turbine valleys?"
In February 2002, following the the apparent decision by the Minister for Energy approve the Cefn Croes windfarm he wrote "The ill wind blowing through energy policy"

Two letters from Lotta Nilsson, a Swedish biologist and schoolteacher, living near a windfarm. She wrote Lotta's Story in 2000, and recently sent Country Guardian her thoughts, on reading the article by Simon Jenkins on the Cefn Croes windfarm.

Mr Blair will blow billions on wind power. From Christopher Booker's Notebook, Sunday Telegraph, (Filed: 17/02/2002)

When The Wind Blows

Angela Kelly, chairman of Country Guardian, was asked by the Faculty of Building to write an article for their Journal. This document, reproduced here by permission of the Faculty, is a concise and powerful statement of the arguments against inappropriate windfarm development

House of Lords. On 25th February 2002 the House of Lords debated Wind Energy, under the shadow of the Cefn Croes development and other potential schemes in Wales. Below is the text of the debate. Almost all the speakers were critical - note particularly the contribution Dr John Oliver, Bishop of Hereford, and a Patron of Country Guardian.

The Darmstadt Manifesto. The Darmstadt Manifesto was signed by over 60 academic critics of windfarms in Germany .

*LOCAL NEWSPAPER COMMENT FROM CUMBRIA* "Blot on the Landscape" from the Evening Mail, Cumbria

Windfarm Protest Poems

Technical and Scientific articles

The Case against Land-based Wind Power in Britain

By Dr John R Etherington, formerly Reader in Ecology, University of Wales.

Limits to Renewables- how electricity grid issues may constrain the growth of distributed generation

By Professor Michael Laughton, B.A.Sc., PhD, DSc(Eng.), FREng., CEng., FIEE, and Paul Spare MSc, CEng, FInstE, MIMechE

This article was published in World Energy, the Journal of the Institute of Energy. It is reproduced by permission of the authors and the Institute. The article represents the views of its authors, rather than those of the Institute of Energy. It is likely to open a lively debate because it undermines a lot of assumptions made about the amount of energy we can expect from wind power.Country Guardian has not attempted to summarise the points made; for a quick summary, refer to the Conclusions at the end. It might be worthwhile to define the difference between 'power' and 'energy'. In the context of wind turbines the power is the Installed Capacity: the energy produced is the output, which varies from zero to 100% of the power, but averages between 25% and 35%.

The right-hand panel of the Home Page provides a list of papers covering technical, economic and environmental aspects of wind energy, and is reproduced here for convenience

Reports, papers, articles

Tilting at Windfarms: An economic analyis of wind power
Prof David Simpson
The David Hume
Institute

West Danish wind power – lessons for the UK

Dr Vic Mason

Windfarms - Rape of the
Countryside or Salvation
of the World?

Dr Mike Hall

Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Fellow of the Institute of Biology

The Costs of Generating Electricity

The Royal Academy of Engineering

Reduction in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: Estimating the Potential Contribution from Wind Power

David White BSc C Eng FIChem E

Renewable Energy Foundation

Renewable Energy Industry Environmental Impacts

Andrew Chapman

The practicalities of developing renewable energy in the UK - in the light of Danish Experience

Hugh Sharman

Climate Issues and Questions

George C Marshall Institute & The Scientific Alliance