We’re destroying our countryside – and for what?

ROBINA bull

"they require 100 per cent back-up from conventional power kept humming on standby just in case."
Well, not really. Pumped storage provides a Co2-free backup.

Mariwarcwm

I wonder if Robina Bull could tell me how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere; can she describe the mechanism by which CO2 warms the atmosphere? does she know that the warming effect is strongly logarithmic? what proportion is natural and what proportion man made, and why she can possibly believe, having looked up the answers, that CO2 is dangerous.

Brilliant, Delingpole. I looked up Sir Reginald Sheffield and discovered who his daughter is. I believe that a close colleague of his son-in-law has a wife who earns £300.000 pa from windmills in Spain. I wondered how the Government could possibly continue to waste money on daft wind power, and put up energy prices in this recession. Some people are unbelievably selfish, ruin the environment and ruin the economy as well. It's scandalous. Thank you for keeping up the fight.

David Insall

Robina Bull displays the wisdom of a nobody. Pumped storage at Port Dinorwic was created in the hollow of a slate mine, whose excavation would cost millions today. Maybe she'll put up the ready cash to start a new one?

allalongthewatchtower

Well said, James, and as for Robina Bull and her fatuous pumped-storage schemes, consider the mechanics and economics of those - water pumped uphill so that it can be released at peak-consumption surges (i.e. after Corrie/Eastenders, when all the goggle-eyed unrealists are craving their cup of Maxwell House). Consider too the damage done by them to wild mountain environments. As to wind-turbines in Wales, take a look at Jim Perrin's article in issue 2 of the re-launched Night & Day magazine for a view on this that affirms and expands on that of James Delingpole. The link is:
http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/nightandday/

He dishes even more dirt on the subsidy-garnering of Cameron, Clegg et al. Pray heaven this is going to be this year's expenses scandal before they ruin every scrap of remaining beautiful land that Britain still has. Come on, Telegraph journos - on the case!

Lynn Pearson

Thank you James, you have voice my thoughts perfectly - Yes, I do live in the beautiful English countryside, in our retirement nestegg of a house with an outstanding view and very close to the proposed windfarm you mentioned at Knightcote (Warwickshire). This is Hobbit countryside and actually the inspiration for Tolkein's Shire - we can see 'Roundtop' from the hill behind our house! (for those who know The Lord of the Rings)- his worst nightmare is coming true, want to build turbines all over it - desicration.

Brownedoff

ROBINA bull

"they require 100 per cent back-up from conventional power kept humming on standby just in case."

Well, not really. Pumped storage provides a Co2-free backup.
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Sorry but you are wide of the mark but the following may help:

National Grid state that:

However, as the amount of wind increases, the proportion of conventional capacity that can be displaced without eroding the level of security reduces. For example, for 25000MW of wind only 5000MW (i.e. 20% of the wind capacity) of conventional capacity can be retired. This implies that, for larger wind penetrations, the wind capacity that can be taken as firm is not proportional to the expected wind energy production. It follows that the electricity market will need to maintain in service a larger proportion of conventional generation capacity despite reduced load factors. Such plant is often referred to as "standby plant".

see: http://tinyurl.com/3zmocas

Putting this into plain English, what NG means is, that if you have 25,000 MW of wind, then you need 20,000 MW of "standby plant", that is 80% of the wind.

Secretly, I think that NG would prefer 100%, just to be really secure.

I assume that you are aware that the "greenest government ever" seeks to impose about 30,000 MW of wind on the peasants.

Using the 80% figure, for 30,000 MW wind, NG need access to 24,000 MW of standby plant.

Just put this into perspective for you, Staythorpe CCGT, which was opened in May 20011, is capable of feeding about 1,650 MW into the grid. The cost of this power station was about £1 billion.

see: http://tinyurl.com/3d2a5d7

Therefore, if Dave's fanasty comes to pass, someone (Gawd knows who) will have to build at least 15 Staythorpes to provide the necessary "standby" capacity. This would cost the power companies much more than £15 billion because costs are rising all the time and would take at least 15 years to achieve because you cannot build them all at once.

Incidently, the pumped storage capacity at the end of 2010 was about 2,750 MW which, whilst useful today, comes nowhere near the standby capacity required when Dave's nightmare comes to pass, being about 11% of 24,000 MW standby required.

Why don't you take this up with your MP.

Steve Davies

Robina, UK pumped storage has the capacity to back up about 1% of UK electricity supply, wastes energy, and is incredibly expensive and carbon hungry to engineer. It is also already fully employed. All storage systems are very wasteful of energy including car batteries. There are much better ways of reducing CO2 emissions than wind-power. Trouble is wind is a gravy train - we all pay the rich land-owners and get nothing in return. I say 'we want our money back!'

John Dracup

ROBINA bull

"Pumped storage provides a Co2-free backup".
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Where do you think the power comes from to run the equipment in reverse to lift the
water from the lower pond to the upper pond? Well, it comes from power plants which are emitting CO2 to varying degrees. Did you not know?

So, you are wrong, pumped storage is not a CO2 free backup.

Here is a list of the existing pumped storage schemes:

Dinorwig 1,728 MW - 28 years old
Festiniog 360 MW - 50 years old
Foyers 300 MW - 37 years old
Cruachan 440 MW - 45 years old
Total = 2,780 MW

Anyone hazard a guess when these old timers will start to fall over? They do not last forever you know.

However, some proposals for new pumped storage in Scotland:

Conversion of existing hydro
Sloy, 60 MW

New pumped storage schemes
Coire Glas, 300 to 600 MW
Balmacaan, 300 to 600 MW
Total = 660 MW to 1,260 MW

So,the best case is 1,260 MW new pumped storage sometime in the future, or maybe never what with capital being scarce and expensive.

It is likely that there will be little or no pumped storage available if and when Dave's dream comes true in 2020.

Trebles all round! (copyright Private Eye).

Scilla Dillon

Brilliant article.Thank you James! Sums up the complete scam.
Please keep fighting. Well said allalongthewatchtower, MP's in favour of Turbines SHOULD be shown up and disgraced. Surely the country could do better things with the £120 BILLION wasted on these monstrosities?

fenbeagle

Well said James. More strength to you for saying it.

SuffolkBoy

I am not scared so much that the country is populated by expert energy consultants of the quality of ROBINA but that the same delusion has infested the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, the UK Government, my local authority and the delegates to the UN. Either this is a new global religion or a massive scam.

Duncan Foulkes

Great article James. Hopefully, the anti-windfarm campaign that continues to grow in Mid Wales will gather momentum and kill these madcap proposals once and for all. Apart from a few landowners, who will be laughing all the way to the bank, I am unaware of many people in favour the plans to desecrate more of the uplands of Mid Wales. We already have more than 200 wind turbines in this beautiful part of the country and there are another 600 planned. Allied to the turbines are powerlines and a 19-acre substation. I would urge anyone who cares for beautiful Mid Wales to join the campaign against these devastating proposals. And just in case you hear claims that the campaign is run by a vociferous minority who have moved to live in this area, let me assure you that there are just as many, if not more, 'locals' involved.

John Lucas

Well done James - another brilliant article. The trouble is, it has made me more depressed than ever about the rape of the landscape by these wind-farm obscenities. I too live in mid-Wales, not far from the proposed Nant-y-moch development, which will turn a truly wild area, including the nationally important Hyddgen Valley, into an industrialised landscape (but why let 600 years of history get in the way of a good money making scam?). The politicians who sanction this desecration are either inept or corrupt.

peter shore

It is a disgrace what is happening accross the Brotish countryside , it is all about profit for the companies concerned subsidised by the higher energy costs we all pay ,for something so grossley inificient and unsightly ,it is also being proposed accross large areas of the Buitifull Somerset levels ( see www.nopilrow.co.uk and also the links to huntspill site

right_writes

I cannot see a huge amount of difference between these wind turbine thugs and the looting kind of thugs James, apart of course from the damage done by the warmist types.

As for the motivation, both are spurious.

Jude Smith

Answer me this, any of you. Would you prefer to live next to a coal fired power station or a wind farm? Be completely honest.

peter shore

Stupid question Jude Smith , no need for either in an area such as the Somerset levels , their is a huge potential from the Severn . which would also act a not only urban re-generation 0creating much needed jobs ) but when built an atraction that would again bring much needed revenue

bufo75

Sir Reginald Sheffield wrote to the Spectator in response to this article to say 'the planning permission at Bagmoor had very little local opposition and was passed by North Lincolnshire's planning committee without recourse to a planning enquiry'. However in June 2007 the Independent tells us that 'Last year there was controversy over planning consent given for a series of eight 400ft wind turbines to be built on land at Bagmoor. At the 11th hour however 6 Tory planning officers were forced to withdraw from the planning meeting, after it emerged that Sir Reginald had an interest in the site'.
What 'controversy' and why were the Tories 'forced to withdraw' ?

Mike

Land owners farmers governments have ruined the countryside for all sorts of reasons and shut the public out,the destruction that has been done to our wildlife is very sad,I am 60 and when I was a boy the countryside was alive everywhere with wildlife with ponds meadows marshland to support it, its sad children are missing out,look at Google earth to see how farmers have cut into the forest and made it ugly and sterilised it,same old greed so sad.Mike.