Letter: Taxing power

David Lee (Comment, 15 September) suggests that Alex Salmond is likely to draw inspirational parallels with the oil industry of 40 years ago.

If he means that Mr Salmond is going to announce that Scottish wind farms will only be situated in the middle of the North Sea then this would be a welcome parallel. Perhaps Mr Salmond will also wish to suggest wind energy companies be taxed in a similar way to oil companies in 1975 when the petroleum revenue tax was introduced at 50 per cent.

The oil companies of the 1970s and the wind energy companies of today certainly have one thing in common: super normal profits. Such a tax would be a small consolation for the destruction of our countryside but at least would go some way to recompensing the taxpayer for the subsidies given to the wind industry without which not one wind turbine would be built.

Alan J Black

Camus Avenue

Edinburgh

Regarding your coverage of the proposed 3 billion investment in Scotland's renewable energy projects by Iberdrola (your report, 14 September), readers should remember that energy companies are not charitable organisations nor altruistically inclined and would expect to make a profit from their investment. When you ponder just where this profit is coming from, it is from the ever increasing bills borne by electricity consumers as a consequence of huge subsidies paid to renewable energy companies for such investments. Companies such as Iberdrola are not farming wind but are farming subsidies.

GM Lindsay

Whinfield Gardens

Kinross

Why is our government ignoring mounting evidence of the futility of wind-produced energy? We are now to have the Eaglesham Moor site expanded to the biggest in Europe; a grotesque over-reaction to Scotland's virtually immeasurable contribution to global carbon emissions.

Denmark, by far Europe's leading exponent of the system, also has the most expensive electricity, all with no reduction in its own carbon output; not a single coal mine closed.

But the Danes have at least recognised their folly, abandoning onshore turbines and slashing subsidies.

Meanwhile, you recently published an account, complete with graphic Nasa illustration, of solar flare activity reckoned at 30 to 50 per cent stronger than the last. This should at least remind politicians of the view of many prominent scientists that sunspot cycles are the true source of climate warming and cooling.

Finally, we are all facing depressed living standards due to the financial crisis, so there is a clear case for a moratorium on wind farm development and the removal of subsidies in its production.

Robert Dow

Ormiston Road

Tranent, East Lothian