Energy costs

Euan McLeod (Letters, 27 May) is, no doubt, convinced that wind power will keep the lights on, although 2,800 turbines currently installed produce less than 1 per cent of our needs.

He also makes much of a poll by Greenpeace which shows that 59 per cent of the public support renewable energy systems. Off course they do. A relentless barrage of propaganda from companies who will make a fortune from installing the wind factories has seen to that.

Euan McLeod did not mention that the best estimates for subsidised wind power will treble domestic electricity bills, or that every watt of wind power will require back-up from standby conventional or nuclear power stations.

He claims that nuclear power is dangerous, yet 90 per cent of all French electricity is produced from nuclear power stations, which have been running for many years, and they have never had a single fatality due to nuclear activities, and no is produced at any of them. The French pay about half the amount we do for electricity. There is little demand for expensive windmills there. However, coal-burning power stations are very dangerous, as, apart from the which they generate, the coal required comes largely from poorly-regulated coal mines in countries such as China, where there have been, on average, 6,000 deaths a year in the coal mines. Just imagine the outcry if there were even six deaths at a nuclear power plant.

JAMES DUNCAN

Rattray Grove

Edinburgh

I was pleased to see two excellent letters from Dr Charles Wardrop and Ron Greer being critical about wind turbines and their lack of any financial or environmental benefit. (Letters, 27 May).

The problem is not just with wind turbines but the flawed philosophy that global warming is caused solely by manmade emissions.

Much of what we are told to believe is just green propaganda. Sea levels are not rising, cyclone activity is not increasing and polar bears are not endangered but increasing in numbers.

There has been no increase in global temperatures over the past 11 years and Professor Latif, an IPCC contributor, admitted that temperatures would not rise for another 40-50 years due to changes in ocean currents known as North Atlantic Oscillation.

More is the pity that an intelligent man like energy minister Jim Mather is a green convert, supporting these heavily-subsidised monstrosities which, as Ron Greer said, produce less than 2 per cent of UK power.

CLARK CROSS

Springfield Road

Linlithgow, West Lothian