Doubts on wind

It MAY seem to some of your readers that this debate about wind farming is getting nowhere, so let me explain why we doubters persist. Our aim is to have the truth about the cost-
effectiveness of wind farming, on and offshore, revealed.

The costs are significant in terms of landscape, our peatland carbon sinks, the opportunity costs of alternatives such as energy conservation, financial demands on those who already suffer from fuel poverty, the price paid by communities which have to live with these structures in spite of financial incentives, the distortion of our democratic processes and resource allocation systems, not to mention potentially our future energy security, if the politicians and environmental lobby have got it as wrong as we suspect they may have.

Current management practice emphasises “outputs” and the extent to which they justify the “inputs”. In the context of energy policy, do the global reductions in emissions (outputs) justify to any degree whatsoever the cost of the above inputs? Only an independent national energy commission such as that called for by the John Muir Trust can answer that question.

The wind industry lobby is unlikely to sacrifice their subsidies and it may seem a futile exercise to take on the might of the political and environmental elites who have invested so much of their reputations and our money in this project. But we do have faith that sooner or later, reason, fairness and democracy will prevail.

John Milne

Ardgowan Drive, Uddingston, South Lanarkshire