Letter: The true cost of wind energy
MORE than 100 Tory politicians have raised concerns about the cost of subsidies paid for onshore wind farms.
The MPs demanded that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the “inefficient” onshore wind turbine industry are “dramatically cut”. There are currently more than 3,000 wind turbines and at least another 4,500 will be needed to meet legally binding targets for cutting carbon emissions.
No country outside the EU has “legally binding targets”. Think China, America, India, Indonesia and Brazil.
It is understood there is support for the MPs from the Treasury. This is not surprising since the UK is in economic meltdown. Let us hope the new Energy Secretary Ed Davey is listening.
Clark Cross, Linlithgow
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Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Comments
There are 59 comments to this article
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The Great Bohunkus
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 10:26 PM... referring of course to the orifice out of which he appears to speak.
The Great Bohunkus
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 10:25 PM#57 Alex Orr supposedly has a reputation as one of Scotland's leading PR men. Would that be PR as used in medical terminology perhaps?
Ron Greer
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 09:45 PM55 I'm sure Alex Orr would know who Fred Bloggs really is. He'll have to use a new moniker as he has lost all credibility on this issue. Even Slioch did not come to his aid.
man-o-field
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 09:25 PM53...Fred Bloggs.. Yes so; your concocted figure for anticyclonic weather conditions is excessively high. Remember, too, that the often widespread area of anticyclones would ensure that a considerable increase in the number of turbines would only result in a still abysmal generation of wind electricity.
The Great Bohunkus
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 09:17 PMMr Bloggs - While it is generally assumed by all here that you are a paid mouthpiece of the wind energy industry, you obfuscate, deceive, bluster and dissemble like a politician. Are the two mutually exclusive? Could you in fact be both?
Ron Greer
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 09:13 PM53 Fred Bloggs---You are now gibbering in the faint hope that this a philibuster, but you have been publicly rumbled and confirmation of the uselessness of windfarms has been established. Perhaps Alex Orr could retrain you in a new discipline?
fred bloggs
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 09:01 PM48. The annual figure of 10TWh for wind generation is for the complete year 2010 including the low wind anticyclonic periods and averages out at 1.2GW continuous equivalent for the year not 'a few MW'.
man-o-field
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 08:57 PMFred... Answer the questions!
fred bloggs
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 08:51 PMThe ROCs scheme is not a subsidy in the sense of being cash from the government. More accurately it may be regarded as a fine paid by power suppliers who do not generate sufficient renewable electricity to those that do. The latter receive ROCs from Ofgem that they can trade in for cash while the fomer must buy ROCs at the going price.
Ron Greer
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 07:49 PMWell said #48 and he still hasn't come up with an answer as to why we are building windfarms in the first place. Yes and we haven't mentiones Constraint Payments.
cajwbroomhill
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 07:47 PM"f.b." Perhaps the SNP pay you by the word, but, if you can answer Post 15 convincingly, you'll deserve a bonus, of several bn pounds Scots, to be repeated every 29 February. Then you could pay off and "gag" Mr Trump. Otherwise, to be honest, you and the rest of them should say he hit the nail on the head, and put the money into shale gas harvesting and Scottish Thorium generator development, so helping our poor nation as much as Mr Salmond's dopey schemes, designed to be vote winners, are harming us all now.
man-o-field
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 07:43 PMFred Bloggs.. You still haven't come up with your assessment of the cost of the subsidies doled out to the Wind People. Remember? Your MW or so of continuous generation, out of a total of around 50,000MW is, of course, a fiction. When those glorious anticyclones are established and the wind fails even the spurious 1200MW value is excessively high!
fred bloggs
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 07:03 PMContinuing from 43: The 10TWh of wind generation in 2010 is equivalent to a year's continuous generation at a 1.2GW. With metered wind capacity on the grid of 4GW this works out at a capacity factor of 29% which is very good for a low wind year.
The Great Bohunkus
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 06:34 PMSorry - typo. Should have read Fraud Bloggs.
The Great Bohunkus
Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 06:33 PMFred Bloggs disingenuously claims that ROCs are not a subsidy. Fine, so lets scrap the ROC system then. Sell your wind generated power on the open market at market prices and then we'll see how many more wind farms get built.
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