Against wind farms?
m. | 01.07.2004 08:39 | Ecology | Cambridge
Local residants at Boxworth, south Cambridgeshire, have set up a campain to stop a wind farm being build near their village. Any comments?
An example letter that has appeared in the Cambridge Evening News:
(from
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk)
MR Edmondson's letter ("Power of the wind", Letters, June 17) remarks that the wind is "free".
But, as with anything free you get what you pay for, and unfortunately the wind doesn't blow when we need it, but as and when it chooses.
The turbines may be turning the majority of the time, but at the end of the year they will only have produced a third of their theoretical capacity (figures from Your Energy Ltd).
These 16 high-rise industrial units are just not very effective when placed on the land. In spite of their gigantic size (100m, 328ft, that's two and a half times the height of the turbine at Wood Green), these turbines will produce only a small quantity of intermittent power. The annual output will be less than 2.6 per cent of the electricity Cambridgeshire needs.
Does this really justify the environmental damage and the trauma that Your Energy Ltd is causing to the families who will live 600m from these gigantic machines?
Wind power is far more effective off-shore, and serious developers are going there, many miles out to sea.
The indirect subsidies for harnessing wind power are huge (70 per cent of a wind farm's income according to a recent article in the The Economist) and the cheaper option maximises Your Energy's profit and never mind the people of Boxworth and Conington. Very green.
High Street
Boxworth
(from
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk) MR Edmondson's letter ("Power of the wind", Letters, June 17) remarks that the wind is "free".
But, as with anything free you get what you pay for, and unfortunately the wind doesn't blow when we need it, but as and when it chooses.
The turbines may be turning the majority of the time, but at the end of the year they will only have produced a third of their theoretical capacity (figures from Your Energy Ltd).
These 16 high-rise industrial units are just not very effective when placed on the land. In spite of their gigantic size (100m, 328ft, that's two and a half times the height of the turbine at Wood Green), these turbines will produce only a small quantity of intermittent power. The annual output will be less than 2.6 per cent of the electricity Cambridgeshire needs.
Does this really justify the environmental damage and the trauma that Your Energy Ltd is causing to the families who will live 600m from these gigantic machines?
Wind power is far more effective off-shore, and serious developers are going there, many miles out to sea.
The indirect subsidies for harnessing wind power are huge (70 per cent of a wind farm's income according to a recent article in the The Economist) and the cheaper option maximises Your Energy's profit and never mind the people of Boxworth and Conington. Very green.
High Street
Boxworth
m.
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