This page contains an article, paper, news item or other source of evidence referred to in The Case Against Windfarms
“ It would be unrealistic to assume that wind energy would displace any nuclear capacity”
Sustainable Development Commission, chaired by Jonathan Porritt
Over the first six months of 2005 a tsunami wave of reports, papers and articles, relating directly or indirectly to the Case Against Windfarms, has appeared.Most of these are negative for wind. There is an exception, a report called Wind Power in the UK, produced by the Sustainable Development Commission, chaired by Jonathan Porritt. In the middle of a predictable and uncritical pro-wind diatribe, appears the statement “.. it would be unrealistic to assume that wind energy would displace any nuclear capacity” (p41) . Country Guardian has always claimed this but the pro-wind lobby have never admitted it, quite the contrary, they have encouraged the belief. Millions of people in the UK actually believe it to be true and it explains a lot.
For example, under the headline Voters prefer wind farms to building nuclear reactors, The Times, (August 8 th 2005 ), published the results of an opinion survey from Populus, which showed that a high percentage of the population do not trust nuclear power. “Hostility to nuclear power is matched by a belief that renewable sources of energy such as wind farms could fill the gap in energy needs in the next 20 years”…. “People are overly optimistic about the extent to which renewable energy can replace nuclear power. 79% of those polled back renewables as a replacement for imported energy”. The Times quoted Brian Wilson, the former Labour Energy Minister who said “ It is completely mistaken to put forward nuclear and renewables as alternatives. If we are serious about a carbon reduction then we need both of them.
The Times Leader picked up on this point “..all the British public has to go by is an unsatisfactorily ambitious 2003 White Paper that, without ruling out nuclear energy, led people to believe, mistakenly, that energy-saving combined with renewable energy could plug the yawning gap between supply and demand. This greatly overstates their potential.”
In other words the public has been conned into thinking that renewable energy can replace nuclear . This is one of the reasons why opinion polls appear to show public approval for windfarms. (Other reasons are slanted questions and defective sampling).
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Sustainable Development Commission (Chair Jonathan Porritt) |
Contains the admission (above) that wind farms will not replace any nuclear generation. Otherwise trundles out well-worn platitudes about climate change and sustainability. Tries to dismiss the intermittency issue, See the next two entries which are decisive refutations of this paper |
New Wind Report Fundamentally Flawed May 2005 |
Renewable Energy Foundation |
“The SDC’s report, long anticipated, proves to be a stale compendium of wind industry special pleading. The document attempts to force acceptance of wind energy despite its negative impacts by leading the reader to infer that wind turbines will avert climate change. This is not the case. The facts show that while wind has a role, it can only make a minor contribution” |
Windpower in the UK : Has the Sustainable Development Commission got it Right? |
Oxford Energy Comment Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Oxford University |
A serious and damning comment of the SDC report. It identifies many inaccuracies, and misunderstandings of the technology. “One should expect the SDC to come up with a coherent overall approach to energy and the environment. However, it is fair to ask it to present a properly argued case for wind power if it wants unwilling communities across the country to suffer the environmental consequences (and unknowing consumers to bear the cost). It has not done so”. |