Home Page

This page contains an article, paper, news item or other source of evidence referred to in The Case Against Windfarms

 

 

 

Recent news items

April 2008

21st April HOT PRESS  !!!   BBC News

Isle of Lewis – huge wind 'farm' rejected !!!

Wonderful news after years of non-stop fighting by campaigners to save Lewis from the land-wreckers !

Angela Kelly

http://www.wind-watch.org:80/news/2008/04/21/
lewis-wind-farm-refused/

April 2008

Kentish Weald Action Group have been lucky to find a photomontage specialist who not only produces good turbine photomontages but can get the blades to rotate. His work is now on the KWAG home page at http://www.kwag.co.uk , where his contact details can be found.

March 2008

What is Make Your Own Noise! (MYON)?

Make Your Own Noise! is a place to come and register your local noise nuisance. Using this site you can connect with others affected, sharing your experience and potentially gaining and providing guidance to other sufferers. Membership is free and anonymous at www.makeyourownnoise.co.uk

Wind turbines have a special category at :-
http://www.makeyourownnoise.co.uk/view.php?p=&n=10&b=1

 

February 2008

The Times                              February 4, 2008
Wind farms ‘a threat to national security’

February 2008

Wind Rush. Why is the UK Government obsessed with wind turbines, when the case against them is so strong? Are the developers panicking? The Wind Rush Campaign is following these developments, starting with three very current topics, the threat to radar, the disappearing CO2 savings and alternative renewables.

 

January 2008

FACTS ABOUT WIND POWER The Cumbrian windfarm action group FELLS produces this document, with regular updates. This is Version 8, dated 17 January 2008.

September 2007
Wind power in Denmark, 2007© By Dr V.C. Mason (September 2007 ) It is often said that wind power covers about 20% of Danish electricity consumption. It is more correct to say that the production of power by Danish wind turbines corresponds to about 20% of electricity demand. But a considerable part of wind energy produced is exported to neighbouring countries and thus does not cover any part of Danish electricity consumption.

This is the latest updated version of Dr Mason's comprehensive assessments of the windfarm industry in Denmark.

 

September 2007 UK Wind Generation 2006 - by site.
© CLOWD

The Renewable Energy Certificates produced by Ofgem. These figures show, for each windfarm, how much electricity was actually produced as a percentage of the Nominal (Installed) Capacity Essential reading

 

September 2007

Wimbledon Windmill

Sir, There is an old saying: "No one ever built a windmill if he could build a watermill." The wind is an unreliable source of power. It seldom blows steadily and sometimes not at all.
The power generated by the wind varies with the cube of the wind speed. That means that if the wind speed drops from 40mph to 20mph, the power output does not drop by 50 per cent: it drops by 87.5 per cent. At 10mph, the wind produces only 1.56 per cent of the power generated by a 40mph wind.
The wind can never become a major source of power.

Norman Plastow, Hon Curator, Wimbledon Windmill Museum , London SW19

Letters, Daily Telegraph, 4 September 2007

 
September
2007Costing the Earth - BBC programme lifts the lid on the subsidies levied on energy consumers, which underpin ineffective wind turbines. Read the BBC News summary of the programme and a comment from Country Guardian's Vice President

Click on Listen Again to hear the whole programme. [This takes you to the Radio4 webpage for the programme Costing the Earth. Select Listen Again for 30 August 2007)

August 2007 UK Operational Windfarm sites August 2007. (Operational capacity over 0.05MW)

 
July 2007 Cefn Coch Rally - Country Times Express, Powys, July 13th

Protest rally on wind farms

Wind farm protesters at Cefn Goch Inn, below Mynydd Clogau, meet with naturalist David Bellamy. (FL)

 

June 2007 The Times Monday June 25th

"Renewable energy is not the silver bullet that will solve our problems, oil chiefs say"
"Efforts to fight global warming will be wasted unless we concentrate on energy efficiency" (Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell).

New Scientist – Letters 9 June 2007

"New Scientist 's report on the large number of bats succumbing to wind turbines reinforces a common misperception - that the blades move slowly (12 May, p 4). It is true that the blades of older, small wind turbines rotated rapidly and so would appear to a bird or bat as a semi-solid disc to be avoided.

Modern 2-megawatt wind turbines make an apparently lazy 10 to 20 revolutions per minute, but the blades are around 40 metres long. Simple geometry shows that the blade tips travel at between 150 and 300 kilometres per hour. For a bird or bat in misty weather, these aircraft-sized blades appear from nowhere at intervals of between 2 and 4 seconds, a scenario that even a fighter pilot would find alarming."

John Etherington, Llanhowel, Pembrokeshire , UK (Author of the Case against Windfarms )

 

May 2007 Climate Porn, catastrophism and Hollywoodisation

Responsible climate scientists and others are protesting against the hype about climate change, as typified by the film "An Inconvenient Truth" promoted by Al Gore. In a report headed ‘Climate porn’ turning off public opinion, the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr )criticised the way the Government, NGOs and some journalists exaggerate (and in some cases play down) the threat of Global Warming. Read the full report, called Warm Words

Just recently this theme has been picked up by two eminent members of the Royal Meteorological Society, Professor Paul Hardaker, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society and Professor Chris Collier, former President of the RMS. Both had distinguished careers at the MET office and are government advisors. Their views were aired in the following item on BBC News.

May 2007 Lincolnshire couple's windfarm nightmare

The Media have been following the fate of Jane and Julian Davis, of Deeping St Nicolas in Lincolnshire .. They live about 900 metres from the 8 x 2MW turbines erected by Wind Prospect, and are suffering from AM (Aerodynamic or Amplitude Modulation) which creates a low hum at about 62 decibels sometimes lasting for 24 hours or more. They are unable to sleep and have to leave the house when the noise is present, and are permanently tired. A local estate agent has told them the house is valueless (transcript of part of a BBC radio 4 Radio You and Yours programme).
See also Lincolnshire Noise

 

May 2007 Plans for moor wind farm scrapped
Plans for a controversial wind farm scheme near Saddleworth Moor have finally been scrapped.
German Energy Company, E ON , had been applying for permission to build seven giant turbines on Denshaw Moor for more than four years. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6649685.stm

 

February 2007 WIND TURBINES - Noise, Health and Human Rights Issues

http://www.windturbinenoisehealthhumanrights.com/

The information available on this site examines the health impact on families when developers build wind turbines too close to their homes. The information considers the effects of wind turbine acoustics on health, e.g., sleep deprivation and related adverse health effects. The information available examines the health impact on families when developers build wind turbines too close to their homes. It considers the effects of wind turbine acoustics on health, e.g., sleep deprivation and related adverse health effects.

 

November 2006 Wind Energy: Facts and Fiction; A half truth is a whole lie
J.A. Halkema
This is a very comprehensive critique of wind energy by an engineer who has spent a career in energy generation. He uses the basic laws of physics to show that wind turbines can never be an acceptable means of generating electricity, except in very specific local situations where reliability is not essential.

The author refers widely to the report Wind Energy 2005, produced by the German energy company E.ON. this is also essential reading in its own right. It is available here

October 2006 Row over renewable energy scheme
A wind turbine-based renewable energy scheme is being funded by cuts from other projects designed to promote household energy efficiency. According to the Energy Saving Trust, "there is little point in putting wind farms up in hospitals when they will be providing energy that will be wased in badly-insulated buildings...a massive blow to to energy saving projects in the UK". Read the BBC news item

September 2006 A large windfarm project at Kilbraney, Co Wexford, Republic of Ireland, is thrown out after a Public Inquiry. 17 turbines 121 metres high would have threatened an area of natural beauty, combined with a high population.www.savekilbraney.com
May 2006 A windfarm was approved at Whitelee Forest, in open/wooded countryside near to Glasgow. To achieve this the developer is having to build an extra radar installation to boost the air traffic control at Glasgow Airport. Read MOD Radar issues for windfarms are soluble….perhaps

April 2006 A BBC Radio 4 programme - A Load of Hot Air - delved into the process by which the real science about Global Warming is exaggerated by the spin doctors of the climate apocalypse. Read the transcript.

March 2006 Wind Power Subsidy in the UK - Dr John Etherington
Summary:
 Wind power in the UK receives a largely covert subsidy which currently doubles its value to the generator, and unlike conventional taxation-sourced support is not open to public view or Parliamentary attention. Wind power has a huge environmental impact and saves minimal carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emission.