Wind setback

Published on Sunday 13 September 2009 21:38

AT the end of last year the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) was forced to cut its calculation by half relating to the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emissions that are displaced by wind turbines to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas. This is a serious setback for the advocates of wind power, including Simon Murrells, (Letters, 11 September), who appears to have used the "old" numbers to calculate a "payback" time of s

For several years the BWEA claimed that electricity from wind turbines displaced 860kg of for every Megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated. However, that figure has now been halved to 430kg per MWh following "discussions" with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) – so that's all right then.

Experts have already calculated that, to help save around 200 million tons of emissions, a further 50,000 wind turbines would be required by 2020. This figure has just doubled to 100,000 turbines on the say-so of the ASA, but 430kg/MWh is at odds with the Royal Academy of Engineering's report, which puts the figure at just 90kg/MWh, so we now need 477,778 wind turbines to meet government targets by 2020.

The upshot of this report is that Mr Murrells' energy payback time has increased tenfold to five years, which makes you wonder why anybody believes that these not-fit-for-purpose machines actually do what it says on the tin.

ANDREW H MACKAY

Causewayside

Tain, Ross-shire