Page 5 - Phonebox Magazine November 2007

HAVE YOUR SAY
Letters
Dear Editor
Dr Handford, like the wind industry, seems to believe that repeatedly highlighting global warming validates
their proposal to cover the UK with wind turbines. Neither he, nor anyone, can state with certainty what proportion of undeniable warming is due to natural causes or recent human activity; nor can they predict the effect of attempts at correction.
Research into climatology and oceanography has been constrained by lack of funding. NASA high altitude temperature data used by scientists in the climate debate is now known to be inaccurate. We are heading into the future without proper scientific guidance. This is no reason to rush around like headless chickens following fashion, evangelical prophets, vested financial interests and the whims and spin of politicians. Society has to guard against creeping intrusion of dogma into science. I hope it is possible to debate climate change in the absence of emotive words and un-provable claims as to which side of the argument is in the majority. A fair minded person needs a clear understanding of, and access to, all facts in order to make a judgement. I believe the current situation in government and within the wind industry makes this unlikely. They live in a world where lies and ‘spin’ are synonymous.
The most important questions are:
1. Is the considerable extra cost to the consumer of wind generated
electricity justified?
2. Is the change in the visual perception of an area caused by turbines
justified by the amount of electricity produced?
It is necessary to know the extent of the wind resource. The windfarm companies routinely exaggerate the amount of prospective electricity when they are preparing plans for approval. All figures for the number of houses supplied and amount of carbon likely to be saved are similarly exaggerated. The companies place an anemometer on prospective sites to assess the wind. This information is kept a closely guarded secret and is not made available to planners or the public. The planning process is
therefore carried out blind and is the equivalent of deciding on a new motorway without the benefit of traffic flow forecasts.
My main complaint about Dr Handford’s letter is the false hypothesis that windfarm production, which is variable and intermittent, would be made more predictable and productive by building more wind turbines spread across the UK, thereby negating the inherent problems. This is misleading and substantially untrue and is not born out by analysis of the available UK wind resource. By using data from 64 mainland Met Office sites, spread across the UK, it is possible to calculate what a modern wind turbine would produce on each site.
This exercise shows that there was effectively no wind generated electricity produced on mainland UK for the ten days to 8th October (after deducting electricity consumed by turbines when not generating). The Met Office forecasts on 8th showed that this situation would last for several days. The actual 9th October figures demonstrated the forecast to be inaccurate. The more windfarms we have the more likely blackouts will become, unless adequate standby generation is immediately available.
As for the ability to forecast wind speeds, my graphs of local and national wind speeds demonstrate that electricity from this source can lurch in the range of maximum to nil in a matter of an hour or so. Winds cannot be predicted in the very short term, let alone long term, and our present grid structure is totally unable to deal with this instability without something approaching 100% backup from other traditional generating methods.
Windfarms are beginning to be seen for what they are: an expensive and unreliable form of generation.
I agree that we should not be spectators in the carbon reduction battle and have looked at the issues involved in the other technologies. I cannot escape the conclusion that, like wind, they can only represent a very small part of future generation capacity until there is radical improvement in technologies.
There are two realistic solutions: a) cutting energy use, b) rapid deployment of new nuclear facilities.
E M Reeves
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Phonebox Magazine 5