‘Gold rush in wind turbines leaves Scots feeling under attack’

By Scott Macnab
Published on Friday 2 December 2011 12:32

A MORATORIUM should be placed on new wind turbine developments until councils are given clearer guidance from government, environment minister Fergus Ewing has been told.

MSPs warned that local communities feel they are “under attack” from energy firms whose desperation to snap up land across Scotland “resembles the prospecting days of the American gold rush”.

Hundreds of local campaigners packed into Holyrood’s public gallery last night and heard warnings that the issue could now threaten flagship government energy policies.

Labour’s Neil Findlay warned that the SNP’s plans to generate 100 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from renewables by the end of the decade could be “scuppered” by public anger surrounding the “over-concentration” of wind farms in some areas.

“It resembles the prospecting days of the American gold rush with landowners hawking their land for rental and developers seeing steady treasure in the form of subsidies,” he said.

Mr Findlay warned that after permission was granted for the Black Law wind farm in South Lanarkshire, the area became a “prime target” for developers who have flooded it with 15 applications for more than 250 turbines.

“They’re not motivated by environmental concerns, but by pound notes,” he said.

“Close to the grid and to demand, not a tourist spot, relatively rural and with what they wrongly viewed as a passive, compliant community – this ticked many investment boxes.”

The impact on the landscape is not a “priority consideration” as developments spread, according to the Labour MSP who said the system is “unco-ordinated, unplanned and incoherent.”

Former Holyrood presiding officer Alex Fergusson told MSPs that he rented out land on his farm for seven turbines, so was not an opponent, but added that wind farms are not a cheap form of energy.

“It is massively expensive, it is something for which we’re all paying through the nose through our electricity bills and the energy produced by wind farms would not be produced by any commercial company without the huge subsidies,” he said.

The build-up of wind farms in many areas was becoming “unbearable” for many people living there, Mr Fergusson added.

“The lack of proper guidance to local authorities from government on the siting of wind farms is actually the root cause of much of this anger and frustration.

“The time has come to consider a moratorium on further development until justifiable concerns have been answered.”

Adam Ingram, the SNP MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, voiced concerns about the “damaging impact” of wind farms in the South Carrick area.

The former children’s minister added: “All of these problems are compounded and exacerbated by the scale and rapidity of proposed development.”

He added new sites were “targeted relentlessly by all sorts of wind farm developers, large and small”.

Former Tory leader Annabel Goldie called for a review of energy policy and planning guidance.

“The current position is unsustainable and ludicrous,” she said.

Mr Ewing said that Scottish Natural Heritage will be publishing new guidance on the “cumulative impact” of wind farms, as well as guidance on landscape and siting.

“We have been considering these matters about which people feel very strongly and doing so in some detail,” he added.

Comments

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14

nabodican

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 03:38 PM

#13 Too true Ron, kind regards - Ben

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13

Ron Greer

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 11:06 AM

Yes, Nabodican and when you criticise the pathetic performance of wind, they accuse you of always concentrating on wind and not renewables. Then they go silent when you point out that other ready-to-use-now renewables are of as little consequence as wind and that in any case all their press propaganda with a renewables title only talk about the latest, biggest windfarm in Europe! Latest cut and paste and rentaquote from Bloggs and Coldstream will be along soon.

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12

nabodican

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 10:24 AM

#11 Samthebam is confusing wind farms with renewable energy - this is a favourite ploy of the wind industry which he represents.

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11

samcoldstream

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 09:20 AM

On the contrary, London does have it's own government. It's called the London Assembly. Strange how the current MSP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley doesn't support wind farms, yet, his MSP predecessor, who is now an MP for the same area, is a strong supporter of renewables?

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10

Ron Greer

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 09:18 AM

6 Jimmy fae the West Jimmy please make a frequent inspection of the NETA website for the daily facts on actual output of electricity, by clicking on to the Generation by Fuel Type table. Then ask yourself---if all of this was allocated to Scotland how could we possibly run a modern industrial society on this amount of power? Thereafter consider that Scotland's output of anthropogenic CO2 from electricity production represents about 0.05% and this has no significant impact on climate change one way or the other. So windfarms do not produce worthwhile amounts of dependable predictable electricity and their power outputs are so low that they can't affect Scotland's contribution to world CO2 levels. Why then are we building them?

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9

Mercutio

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 08:14 AM

#8 Nabodican: Jimmy fae the West is deliriously contented in his ovine obedience to SNP dogma.

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8

nabodican

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 08:07 AM

#7 Jimmy fae the west, You may not have noticed but the article is about wind turbines. Also you may like to know that London does not have a government.

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7

Jimmy Fae the West

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 02:50 AM

1 norfolkboy14 wrote; Are you disillusioned by rising electricity prices ______________________________________________________ Disillusioned indeed over the London government's punitive feed-in tarriffs for Scots producers and the London government's covert way of allowing the French state et al to increase prices to pay for England's very expensive Nuclear plant renewal project. Scots are again paying for England's energy security.

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6

Jimmy Fae the West

Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 02:43 AM

MSPs warned that local communities feel they are “under attack” from giant spinning daisies. Arrrggghhh! I think Labour have lost the plot and it is time for this silly paper to stop printing their foolish attacks on the Scottish government. Yesterday it was gays getting married and today it is Electricity generators. Wednesday the headline was Labour attacking the SNP over London's punishment of public service jobs.

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5

man-o-field

Friday, December 2, 2011 at 08:32 PM

FOR INSTANCE See 10 ways to weather the winter. Approximately 3 days worth of 'steady' generation was above 1200MW, the rest, from the 4th to the 22nd was lesser.

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4

man-o-field

Friday, December 2, 2011 at 08:19 PM

The insanity for over proliferation of onshore industrial wind 'farms' seems to have gripped most politicians. That the subsidy scammers, often foreign, would be in a wild frenzy for sites is quite predictable. The essential need for backup is largely forgotten especially when huge numbers of turbines are to be deployed. The latest low- wind failure of electricity generation ended only about 12 hours ago when generation was less than about 1200MW for at least the preceding 12 hours. Such minimal generation patterns occur frequently, often for extended periods of time. Reliance on wind power is, then, undoubtedly a sign of incompetent investigation and research. And our electricity generation in Scotland is totally irrelevant in terms of climate change (aka. global warming!) To assign Scotland to be a turbine dump is therefore almost criminal.

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3

Jimmy Neutron

Friday, December 2, 2011 at 07:49 PM

These windmill salesmen must be the best salesman in the world, these things are subsidised rubbish that produce ¼ of what they claim.

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2

Lyndsey W

Friday, December 2, 2011 at 07:28 PM

Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon & wind power lover Rob Gibson all left the chamber before the debate according to reports. That is pretty shameful when many members of the public had made the effort to attend the debate. It's about time the SG started listening - they cannot continue to ride roughshod over the opinions of people in rural communities.

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1

norfolkboy14

Friday, December 2, 2011 at 06:05 PM

Are you disillusioned by rising electricity prices, over dependence on the "green" dream [especially uneconomical and inefficient wind farms] and the destruction of our countryside then please register your concern on http:epetitions.direct.gov.ukpetitions22958

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