The policy on which our national energy strategy is now centred is a ludicrously expensive, self-defeating joke, says Christopher Booker.

7:00PM BST 02 Jul 2011 Sunday Telegraph

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Two recent press articles - first, a truly appalling report in the Daily Mail (online). It's quite long - but worth persevering. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

Daily Mail (online) 29th January 2011. By Simon Parry in China and Ed Douglas in Scotland.

This toxic lake poisons Chinese farmers, their children and their land. It is what's left behind after making the magnets for Britain's latest wind turbines... and, as a special Live investigation reveals, is merely one of a multitude of environmental sins committed in the name of our new green Jerusalem


The lake of toxic waste at Baotou, China, which as been dumped by the rare earth processing plants in the background

On the outskirts of one of China’s most polluted cities, an old farmer stares despairingly out across an immense lake of bubbling toxic waste covered in black dust. He remembers it as fields of wheat and corn.

Yan Man Jia Hong is a dedicated Communist. At 74, he still believes in his revolutionary heroes, but he despises the young local officials and entrepreneurs who have let this happen.

‘Chairman Mao was a hero and saved us,’ he says. ‘But these people only care about money. They have destroyed our lives.’

Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines.

Live has uncovered the distinctly dirty truth about the process used to extract neodymium: it has an appalling environmental impact that raises serious questions over the credibility of so-called green technology.

The reality is that, as Britain flaunts its environmental credentials by speckling its coastlines and unspoiled moors and mountains with thousands of wind turbines, it is contributing to a vast man-made lake of poison in northern China. This is the deadly and sinister side of the massively profitable rare-earths industry that the ‘green’ companies profiting from the demand for wind turbines would prefer you knew nothing about.

Hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory complexes in the city of Baotou, and patrolled by platoons of security guards, lies a five-mile wide ‘tailing’ lake. It has killed farmland for miles around, made thousands of people ill and put one of China’s key waterways in jeopardy.

This vast, hissing cauldron of chemicals is the dumping ground for seven million tons a year of mined rare earth after it has been doused in acid and chemicals and processed through red-hot furnaces to extract its components.


Wind power's uncertainties don't end with intermittency. There is huge controversy about how much energy a wind farm will produce (Pictured above, wind turbines in Dun Law, Scotland)

Rusting pipelines meander for miles from factories processing rare earths in Baotou out to the man-made lake where, mixed with water, the foul-smelling radioactive waste from this industrial process is pumped day after day. No signposts and no paved roads lead here, and as we approach security guards shoo us away and tail us. When we finally break through the cordon and climb sand dunes to reach its brim, an apocalyptic sight greets us: a giant, secret toxic dump, made bigger by every wind turbine we build.

The lake instantly assaults your senses. Stand on the black crust for just seconds and your eyes water and a powerful, acrid stench fills your lungs.

For hours after our visit, my stomach lurched and my head throbbed. We were there for only one hour, but those who live in Mr Yan’s village of Dalahai, and other villages around, breathe in the same poison every day.

Retired farmer Su Bairen, 69, who led us to the lake, says it was initially a novelty – a multi-coloured pond set in farmland as early rare earth factories run by the state-owned Baogang group of companies began work in the Sixties.

‘At first it was just a hole in the ground,’ he says. ‘When it dried in the winter and summer, it turned into a black crust and children would play on it. Then one or two of them fell through and drowned in the sludge below. Since then, children have stayed away.’

As more factories sprang up, the banks grew higher, the lake grew larger and the stench and fumes grew more overwhelming.

‘It turned into a mountain that towered over us,’ says Mr Su. ‘Anything we planted just withered, then our animals started to sicken and die.’

People too began to suffer. Dalahai villagers say their teeth began to fall out, their hair turned white at unusually young ages, and they suffered from severe skin and respiratory diseases. Children were born with soft bones and cancer rates rocketed.

Official studies carried out five years ago in Dalahai village confirmed there were unusually high rates of cancer along with high rates of osteoporosis and skin and respiratory diseases. The lake’s radiation levels are ten times higher than in the surrounding countryside, the studies found.

Since then, maybe because of pressure from the companies operating around the lake, which pump out waste 24 hours a day, the results of ongoing radiation and toxicity tests carried out on the lake have been kept secret and officials have refused to publicly acknowledge health risks to nearby villages.

There are 17 ‘rare earth metals’ – the name doesn’t mean they are necessarily in short supply; it refers to the fact that the metals occur in scattered deposits of minerals, rather than concentrated ores. Rare earth metals usually occur together, and, once mined, have to be separated.


Villagers Su Bairen, 69, and Yan Man Jia Hong, 74, stand on the edge of the six-mile-wide toxic lake in Baotou, China that has devastated their farmland and ruined the health of the people in their community

Neodymium is commonly used as part of a Neodymium-Iron-Boron alloy (Nd2Fe14B) which, thanks to its tetragonal crystal structure, is used to make the most powerful magnets in the world. Electric motors and generators rely on the basic principles of electromagnetism, and the stronger the magnets they use, the more efficient they can be. It’s been used in small quantities in common technologies for quite a long time – hi-fi speakers, hard drives and lasers, for example. But only with the rise of alternative energy solutions has neodymium really come to prominence, for use in hybrid cars and wind turbines. A direct-drive permanent-magnet generator for a top capacity wind turbine would use 4,400lb of neodymium-based permanent magnet material.

In the pollution-blighted city of Baotou, most people wear face masks everywhere they go.

‘You have to wear one otherwise the dust gets into your lungs and poisons you,’ our taxi driver tells us, pulling over so we can buy white cloth masks from a roadside hawker.

Posing as buyers, we visit Baotou Xijun Rare Earth Co Ltd. A large billboard in front of the factory shows an idyllic image of fields of sheep grazing in green fields with wind turbines in the background.

In a smartly appointed boardroom, Vice General Manager Cheng Qing tells us proudly that his company is the fourth biggest producer of rare earth metals in China, processing 30,000 tons a year. He leads us down to a complex of primitive workshops where workers with no protective clothing except for cotton gloves and face masks ladle molten rare earth from furnaces with temperatures of 1,000°C.

The result is 1.5kg bricks of neodymium, packed into blue barrels weighing 250kg each. Its price has more than doubled in the past year – it now costs around £80 per kilogram. So a 1.5kg block would be worth £120 – or more than a fortnight’s wages for the workers handling them. The waste from this highly toxic process ends up being pumped into the lake looming over Dalahai.

The state-owned Baogang Group, which operates most of the factories in Baotou, claims it invests tens of millions of pounds a year in environmental protection and processes the waste before it is discharged.

According to Du Youlu of Baogang’s safety and environmental protection department, seven million tons of waste a year was discharged into the lake, which is already 100ft high and growing by three feet each year.

In what appeared an attempt to shift responsibility onto China’s national leaders and their close control of the rare earths industry, he added: ‘The tailing is a national resource and China will ultimately decide what will be done with the lake.’

Jamie Choi, an expert on toxics for Greenpeace China, says villagers living near the lake face horrendous health risks from the carcinogenic and radioactive waste.

‘There’s not one step of the rare earth mining process that is not disastrous for the environment. Ores are being extracted by pumping acid into the ground, and then they are processed using more acid and chemicals.


Inside the Baotou Xijun Rare Earth refinery in Baotou, where neodymium, essential in new wind turbine magnets, is processed

Finally they are dumped into tailing lakes that are often very poorly constructed and maintained. And throughout this process, large amounts of highly toxic acids, heavy metals and other chemicals are emitted into the air that people breathe, and leak into surface and ground water. Villagers rely on this for irrigation of their crops and for drinking water. Whenever we purchase products that contain rare earth metals, we are unknowingly taking part in massive environmental degradation and the destruction of communities.’

The fact that the wind-turbine industry relies on neodymium, which even in legal factories has a catastrophic environmental impact, is an irony Ms Choi acknowledges.

‘It is a real dilemma for environmentalists who want to see the growth of the industry,’ she says. ‘But we have the responsibility to recognise the environmental destruction that is being caused while making these wind turbines.’

It’s a long way from the grim conditions in Baotou to the raw beauty of the Monadhliath mountains in Scotland. But the environmental damage wind turbines cause will be felt here, too. These hills are the latest battleground in a war being fought all over Britain – and particularly in Scotland – between wind-farm developers and those opposed to them.

Cameron McNeish, a hill walker and TV presenter who lives in the Monadhliath, campaigned for almost a decade against the Dunmaglass wind farm before the Scottish government gave the go-ahead in December. Soon, 33 turbines will be erected on the hills north of the upper Findhorn valley.

McNeish is passionate about this landscape: ‘It’s vast and wild and isolated,’ he says. Huge empty spaces, however, are also perfect for wind turbines and unlike the nearby Cairngorms there are no landscape designations to protect this area. When the Labour government put in place the policy framework and subsidies to boost renewable energy, the Monadhliath became a mouth-watering opportunity.

People have been trying to make real money from Scottish estates like Jack Hayward’s Dunmaglass. Hayward, a Bermuda-based property developer and former chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers, struck a deal with renewable energy company RES which, campaigners believe, will earn the estate an estimated £9 million over the next 25 years.

Each of the turbines at Dunmaglass will require servicing, which means a network of new and improved roads 20 miles long being built across the hills. They also need 1,500 tons of concrete foundations to keep them upright in a strong wind, which will scar the area.

Dunmaglass is just one among scores of wind farms in Scotland with planning permission. Scores more are still in the planning system. There are currently 3,153 turbines in the UK overall, with a maximum capacity of 5,203 megawatts.

Around half of them are in Scotland. First Minister Alex Salmond and the Scottish government have said they want to get 80 per cent of Scotland’s electricity from renewables by 2020, which means more turbines spread across the country’s hills and moors.

Many environmental pressure groups share Salmond’s view. Friends of the Earth opposes the Arctic being ruined by oil extraction, but when it comes to damaging Scotland’s wilderness with concrete and hundreds of miles of roads, they say wind energy is worth it as the impact of climate change has to be faced.

‘No way of generating energy is 100 per cent clean and problem-free,’ says Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns at Friends of the Earth.

‘Wind energy causes far fewer problems than coal, gas or nuclear. If we don’t invest in green energy, business experts have warned that future generations will be landed with a bill that will dwarf the current financial crisis. But we need to ensure the use of materials like neodymium and concrete is kept to a minimum, that turbines use recycled materials wherever possible and that they are carefully sited to the reduce the already minimal impact on bird populations.’

But Helen McDade, head of policy at the John Muir Trust, a small but feisty campaign group dedicated to protecting Scotland’s wild lands, also points out that leaving aside the damage to the landscape, nobody is really sure how much carbon is being released by the renewable energy construction boom. Peat moors lock up huge amounts of carbon, which gets released when it’s drained to put up a turbine.

Environmental considerations aside, as the percentage of electricity generated by wind increases, renewable energy is coming under a lot more scrutiny now for one simple reason – money. We pay extra for wind power – around twice as much – because it can’t compete with other forms of electricity generation. Under the Renewable Obligation (RO), suppliers have to buy a percentage of their electricity from renewable generators and can hand that cost on to consumers. If they don’t, they pay a fine instead.

One unit cell of Nd2Fe14b, the alloy used in neodymium magnets. The structure of the atoms gives the alloy its magnetic strength, due to a phenomenon known as magnetocrystalline anisotropy

There’s a simple beauty about RO for the government. Even though it’s defined as a tax, it doesn’t come out of pay packets but is stuck on our electricity bills. That has made funding wind farms a lot easier for the government than more cost-effective energy-efficiency measures.

‘If you want a grant for an energy conservation project on your house,’ says Helen McDade, ‘the money comes from taxes. But investment for turbines comes from energy companies.’

Already, RO adds £1.4 billion to our bills each year to provide a pot of money to pay power companies for their ‘green’ electricity. By 2020, the figure will have risen to somewhere between £5 billion and £10 billion.

When he was Chancellor, Gordon Brown added another decade to these price guarantees, extending the RO scheme to 2037, guaranteeing the subsidy for more than a quarter of a century.

It’s not surprising there’s been an avalanche of wind-farm applications in the Highlands. Wind speeds are stronger, land is cheaper and the government loves you.

‘You go to a landowner,’ McDade says, ‘and offer him what is peanuts to an energy company yet keeps him happily on his estate so they can put up a wind farm, which in turn raises ordinary people’s electricity bills. There’s a social issue here that doesn’t get discussed.’

By 2020, environmental regulation will be adding 31 per cent to our bills. That’s £160 green tax out of an average annual bill of £512. As costs rise, more people will be driven into fuel poverty. When he was secretary of state at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband decreed that these increases should be offset by improvements in energy efficiencies.

It’s a view shared by his successor Chris Huhne, who says inflation due to RO will be effectively one per cent. Britain’s low-income families, facing hikes in petrol and food costs, will hope he’s right.

Individual households aren’t the only ones shouldering the costs. Industry faces an even bigger burden. By 2020, environmental charges will add 33 per cent to industry’s energy costs.

Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, says that, ‘Industry is getting the worst of both worlds. Around 80 per cent of the contracts for the new Thanet offshore wind farm (off the coast of Kent) went abroad, but the expensive electricity will be paid for here.’

Our current obsession with wind power, according to John Constable of energy think-tank the Renewable Energy Foundation, stems from the decision of the European Union on how to tackle climate change. Instead of just setting targets for reducing emissions, the EU told governments that by 2020, 15 per cent of all the energy we use must come from renewable sources.

Because of how we heat our houses and run our cars with gas and petrol, 30 per cent of electricity needs to come from renewables. And in the absence of other technologies, that means wind turbines. But there’s a structural flaw in the plan, which this winter has brutally exposed.

Study a graph of electricity consumption and it appears amazingly predictable, even down to reduced demand on public holidays. The graph for wind energy output, however, is far less predictable.

Take the figures for December, when we all shivered through sub-zero temperatures and wholesale electricity prices surged. Peak demand for the UK on 20 December was just over 60,000 megawatts. Maximum capacity for wind turbines throughout the UK is 5,891 megawatts, almost ten per cent of that peak demand figure.

Yet on December 20, because winds were light or non-existent, wind energy contributed a paltry 140 megawatts. Despite billions of pounds in investment and subsidies, Britain’s wind-turbine fleet was producing a feeble 2.43 per cent of its own capacity – and little more than 0.2 per cent of the nation’s electricity in the coldest month since records began.

The problems with the intermittency of wind energy are well known. A new network of cables linking ten countries around the North Sea is being suggested to smooth supply and take advantage of 140 gigawatts of offshore wind power. No one knows for sure how much this network will cost, although a figure of £25 billion has been mooted.

The government has also realised that when wind nears its target of 30 per cent, power companies will need more back-up to fill the gap when the wind doesn’t blow. Britain’s total capacity will need to rise from 76 gigawatts up to 120 gigawatts. That overcapacity will need another £50 billion and drive down prices when the wind’s blowing. Power companies are anxious about getting a decent price. Once again, consumers will pay.

Wind power’s uncertainties don’t end with intermittency. There is huge controversy about how much energy a wind farm will produce. Many developers claim their installations will achieve 30 per cent of their maximum output over the course of a year. More sober energy analysts suggest 26 per cent. But even that figure is starting to look generous. In December, the average figure was less than 21 per cent. In the year between October 2009 and September 2010, the average was 23.6 per cent, still nowhere near industry claims.

Then there’s the thorny question of how many homes new installations can power. According to wind farm developers like Scottish and Southern Electricity, a house uses 3.3MWh in a year. Lobby group RenewablesUK – formerly the British Wind Energy Association – gives a figure of 4.7MWh. In the Highlands electricity usage is even higher.

Last year, a report from the Royal Academy of Engineering warned that transforming our energy supply to produce a low-carbon economy would require the biggest investment and social change seen in peacetime. And yet Professor Sue Ion, who led the report, warned, ‘We are nowhere near having a plan.’

So, against the backdrop of environmental catastrophe in China and these less than attractive calculations, could the billions being thrown at wind farms be better spent? Undoubtedly, says John Constable.

‘The government is betting the farm on the throw of a die. What’s happening now is simply reckless



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html#ixzz1D6ZVtE9l

And --- an interesting article in The Times on 2 February: where is wind energy when, during the coldest winter for years, we badly need it?

Robert Lea Industrial Editor Last updated February 2 2011 12:01AM

Britain’s leading renewable energy company has reported a 20 per fall in the amount of electricity produced by its wind turbines. The news came as official figures revealed that on December 30, an exceptionally still day, Britain’s 3,000 operational wind turbines produced only 0.04 per cent of the country’s power. The Energy Minister Charles Hendry told The Times that the figures proved the urgency with which other forms of low-carbon generation needed to be developed. SSE, the company that trades as Southern Electric and Scottish Hydro, yesterday reported for the first time detailed information on the performance of its renewable power-generating facilities. It admitted that it revealed the figures under pressure from anxious investors.

SSE’s figures show a 30 per cent decline in output from its nine hydroelectric schemes. The company blamed that on dry periods early last year and the amount of unthawed snow this winter. SSE said that such significant swings in hydroelectric output were not unknown in the industry. The 20 per cent fall in wind turbine output is potentially more worrying. The fleet of turbines, onshore and off the coast, are thought to be capable of producing 4 percent of Britain’s electricity needs.

Data obtained by The Times from the National Grid’s Elexon unit reveal that for long periods in the summer wind farms produced less than 1 per cent of the country’s electricity. That was repeated again in November and December. The amount of electricity produced on December 30 was a seventy-fifth of the amount of power produced on the windiest day of the quarter on November 2. SSE revealed the figures after investors demanded to know detailed information after an admission three months ago of falling renewable energy output. “We had not been explicit in our previous statements and investors have been asking the question about reduced output,” a spokesman said. SSE does not know the extent to which last year was historically unwindy. “It is important enough to highlight to our investors — but just how exceptional it is, we simply do not know,” the spokesman said. “We have to look at this over a 20 to 25-year time frame.” The figures have not put SSE off the wind market. It is spending £1 billion on three big projects, including the Clyde onshore wind farm in South Lanarkshire, which will be the largest in Europe. Mr Hendry said the data underlined what his department was trying to achieve in its electricity market reforms, which will be contained in a White Paper in the spring.

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Sunday Telegraph 20th June 2010

The 'hippy' wind farm tycoon receiving millions in subsidies

With a fortune estimated at close to £100 million, Dale Vince, a former hippy who once lived in a truck, is probably Britain's most successful eco-tycoon. 

The self-styled 'Zero Carbonista' has made his money – make that lots of money – from a wind farm empire that stretches from Somerset to Scotland. Not everybody is delighted by his financial acumen, however. Vocal critics complain that his company's rapid growth is one of the most glaring examples of the huge sums that can be earned from the generous subsidies available to wind farm owners.
An energy think tank has concluded that in a 12-month period, Mr Vince's 14 wind farms have received more than £6.3 million in subsidies. In total over the past eight years his company Ecotricity will have received more than £22.6 million – a sum which is effectively added on to consumer electricity bills.

Should Ecotricity manage to put into operation all the wind farms it is currently planning, the annual subsidy will rise to close to £25 million, according to the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), an organisation opposed to onshore wind farms.

The subsidy – known as the Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) system – was put in place by the previous Government to encourage energy companies to invest in renewable energy. But opponents claim the levy is overly generous and is encouraging a rapid growth of wind turbines in some of Britain's loveliest stretches of countryside. They even suggest the ROC subsidy is leading to wind farms being built in areas where the wind is not necessarily that strong.

Margareta Stanley, REF's spokeswoman, said: "The Renewable Energy Foundation has long argued that the ROC system has rewarded the wind industry with an income disproportionate to the quality and usefulness of the power produced ... The income of companies such as Ecotricity demonstrates this distortion."

In the village of Silton in Dorset, local opponents to a planned Ecotricity wind farm on their doorstep blamed the subsidy for making the scheme economically viable. "This is a very inappropriate site for a wind farm," said Chris Langham, chairman of the Save Our Silton campaign, "The ROC system is hugely generous which means that companies like Ecotricity can make wind farms profitable even in places where there is very little wind."

Certainly Ecotricity is doing very well. According to the latest accounts for Ecotricity Group Limited, which is the holding and management company, turnover was up 36 per cent to £38 million for the year ending 30 April 2009. Gross profit was £15.4 million. Mr Vince, 48, who prefers ripped jeans and a biker jacket to a business suit, is one of the most flamboyant and charismatic figures in the energy industry. His internet blog is titled Zero Carbonista and is accompanied by a photograph of Mr Vince in a style reminiscent of Che Guevara.

Although a relatively small player compared to the huge conglomerates who dominate the industry, his rise has nevertheless been spectacular. As recently as the early 1990s, Mr Vince was, according to his own website, "living on a hill, in an ex-military vehicle I called home, using a small windmill to power the lights and stuff". He had the brilliant idea of developing wind farms and has built up his empire since then. In 2004 he was awarded an OBE for services to the environment and now lives in a wing of a country house on the edge of Stroud, headquarters to the company he founded and still owns in its entirety.

Within the next few months, he plans to unveil a new type of electric sports car, capable of top speeds well in excess of 100 miles per hour and which he hopes will transform the staid image of electric cars. One high-earners' list estimates his wealth at £90 million.

Mr Vince refused to talk to The Sunday Telegraph. But his spokesman pointed out that Mr Vince has said on many occasions he is not interested in money – only in providing renewable energy alternatives to old-fashioned, polluting fossil fuels. According to company accounts, Mr Vince is paid £65,000 a year as director of the company. "Dale has said he couldn't care less about money," explained his spokesman, "We have been approached by all the big utility companies as well as the likes of Shell and BP but he has told them all he has no interest in selling."

The spokesman refused to discuss REF's estimates for the size of ROC subsidies received by Ecotricity. The spokesman added: "I don't know whether those figures are entirely accurate.
"Their figures in isolation may sound like a lot but we are talking about major pieces of infrastructure. We spent £25 million in 2007 alone on building new sources of wind power. That puts their figures into a little more context."

RenewableUK, the trade association for the wind farm industry, defended the ROC subsidy. "It is a good system," said spokesman Charles Anglin, "The point about ROCs is you can only get financial support for the electricity you produce. It is not a subsidy in the traditional sense. It is an incentive to be efficient."
IN EARTH

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PRESS RELEASE 28 SEPTEMBER 2010

HUMANS, HERITAGE AND HORSES AT RISK FROM SILTON TURBINES, SAY EXPERTS

PLANS to build four giant wind turbines in North Dorset could harm humans, horses, and heritage in North Dorset and beyond, according to reports released by two separate consultants.

The Save Our Silton (SOS) campaign group enlisted the advice of The Landscape Partnership and MAS Environmental to explore what impact the 394ft-high machines would have on the Dorset countryside.

A draft landscape and visual critique prepared by The Landscape Partnership on behalf of SOS says Ecotricity’s plans to build four giant wind turbines in a North Dorset beauty spot could:
· Pose a risk to horses by falling far short of the British Horse Society’s minimum recommended distance of 200 metres between turbines and bridlepaths
· Impact on the Grade I listed St Nicholas church at Silton and other listed tombs in the churchyard
· ‘Introduce alien features of an enormous scale that would dwarf the local landscape features and local landmarks’

An analysis of Ecotricity’s environmental noise assessment by MAS Environmental shows residents are offered less protection from noise levels because:

· Turbine noise is likely to impact to a greater extent than shown by Ecotricity’s noise assessment
· Noise levels will be ‘unacceptable’ at nearby homes such as Whistley Farm and Slait Farm

Jonathan Billingsley, director of Bedford-based The Landscape Partnership, backed up protesters’ concerns that the Ecotricity planning application uses misleading photomontages which ‘consistently and significantly under-represent the likely visual impact of the proposals due to the methodology used.’

He added: ‘This casts doubt on the findings of the visual assessment for which they have been used as a tool.’

The Landscape Partnership says alternative photomontages produced by Architech for SOS provide a more realistic impression, and recommends these should be used by North Dorset District Council officers and councillors when they go on site visits, before making their decision.

Cambridge-based Sarah Large, of MAS Environmental, said in her report: ‘It is not considered that it is possible or appropriate to make an assessment of turbine noise impact or set turbine noise limits using the information provided [by Ecotricity]. There is a large amount of uncertainty surrounding the assessment. Analyses that have been made indicate that the impact resulting from the proposed wind farm is likely to exceed acceptable limits.’

SOS chairman Chris Langham has made a fresh plea for people to make sure they have their say against the wind turbines plans. He said: ‘More than 1,650 objections have now been received by North Dorset District Council. The closing date for comments is 4 October 2010.

‘If you want to save Silton from these monstrous turbines then please add your voice to those of hundreds and hundreds of people who have already united against these destructive plans.

‘All comments must cite the application’s number, which is 2/2010/0731/PLNG and go to Development Control Manager, North Dorset District Council, Nordon, Salisbury Road, Blandford Forum, Dorset, DT11 7LL. Emails are acceptable, to devcontrol@north-dorset.gov.uk but they must include your postal address as well as the planning reference’

NOTES TO EDITORS:

To arrange interviews, photographs, or filming opportunities, or to seek further information, please contact Emily Pykett at Watershed PR. Telephone: 01308 420 785 or email emily@watershedpr.co.uk

ENDS

HOW BILLIONS ARE BEING BLOWN ON WIND FARMS

Daily Express Friday September 24 2010

BRITISH consumers are coughing up £1billion a year to support renewable energy without realising it, a leading expert revealed yesterday.

And the Government-imposed charge will have raked in around £30billion within a decade.

Professor Ian Fells, Emeritus Professor of Energy Conversion at Newcastle University, spoke as the world’s biggest wind-power facility was launched officially off the Kent coast.

Thanet Wind Farm has 100 turbines and could generate enough electricity to power 200,000 homes a year, bringing the Britain’s total wind power to 5GW.

But Prof Fells insisted consumers are unwittingly paying extra to support green energy through the Government’s Renewables Obligation.

He claimed: “This adds about £80 a year on the average electricity bill of £600. Last year the Renewables Obligation raised about £1billion and, by the Government’s own figures, this charge will gross about £30billion by 2020 – enough to build five nuclear power stations. Yet unlike nuclear power, wind power is intermittent and does nothing to secure Britain’s energy supplies.

“The Government’s infatuation with offshore wind has led to other renewable sources, such as tidal power, being starved of resources.” The opening of the Thanet facility by Energy Secretary Chris Huhne means Britain is now the world’s biggest generator of offshore wind power.

The farm, owned by Swedish energy company Vattenfall, is a major step towards Britain meeting Government targets to get 15 per cent of all its energy from renewables by 2020 – compared to the current total of three per cent.

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “This Renewables Obligation is a tax that people are not aware of. It hits the poorest and the elderly hardest and costs people a fortune. And the cost will only rise.”

But Nick Medic, of RenewableUK, defended the payments saying: “The Renewables Obligation is a crucial contribution to de-carbonising our energy economy.

“In plain terms, we are getting bountiful green electricity out of wind and other renewable sources while at the same time generating jobs and business opportunities.”

A Vattenfall spokesman said yesterday the farm was operating at two-thirds of capacity and was expected to operate on average at between 80 and 85 per cent.

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http://www.thisissomerset.co.uk/wells/Wind-farm-protesters-horrified-noise-turbine-visit/article-2617612-detail/article.html

Thursday, September 09, 2010, 11:00

Wind farm protesters horrified by noise during turbine visit

Protesters against a five-turbine wind farm near their village crammed into a mini-bus to visit Somerset's only towering turbine at Chewton Mendip. Energy company Ecotricity organised the trip to try to persuade the group members that their plans for a wind farm would not have a big impact on their lives. However, when the group fighting Ecotricity's Black Ditch wind farm visited the 120m tall turbine on the Mendip Hills they were far from impressed.

The green energy company organised the hour-long visit in response to concerns about the noise, size and shadow flicker among other issues raised against the five, 140m tall planned turbines.

Protester Julie Trott said: "My concerns centre on how the wind farm will harm our way of life. "My first impression is, there are no houses near the turbine, unlike the proposed Huntspill sites which have many houses surrounding them. "As I got off the mini-bus, I was horrified by the noise the turbine was making. "There was a high-pitched buzzing noise, which we were told was coming from the generator and a loud whooshing noise, which was made as the turbine blades passed the stem. "The amount of noise surprised and alarmed me, as we were told that turbines generate little noise.
"We're not against green energy but the proposed location is not the best place."

Nicky Suckmith, 58, of Old Pawlett Road, who has lived in West Huntspill for around 33 years, said: "This turbine is not even as big as the ones proposed for Black Ditch and it's making such a noise and a hiss – imagine five and closer to homes. "This visit has not changed my mind about the plans."

In response, Ecotricity spokesman Mike Cheshire and Victoria Allen tried to field questions. Mr Cheshire said: "We offered to bring people up here to show them the turbine up close, the sound it makes and provide other information. "We are behind the rest of Europe when it comes to turbines and renewable energy, and we believe in the project." He also compared the two developments saying the two-year-old Mendip mast produced enough electricity last year for more than 1,600 homes, while the Black Ditch farm will power 7,800 typical homes. He added that in the 800 days the turbine has been working, it has only been out of action due to wind speeds and technical problems for eight days.



During the trip one protester, Richard Sucksmith, surprised Ecotricity's representatives by saying he knew one of the residents near the Chewton Mendip turbine, Mr Cook. He invited the group to detour the mini-bus to his nearby home to discuss the matter, but Ms Allen said the mini-bus was on timed hire and they could not detour.

The group were upset and angry, and the company ended saying the protesters were more than happy to visit him in their own time. Mr Sucksmith said: "Mr Cook is happy for us to visit him on the way back and he will tell us the truth about living near the turbine. "He tells me it's noisy, especially at night, but the company won't take a little time for us to visit him."

Another protester said: "It's like Ecotricity have something to hide."



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PRESS RELEASE 31 AUGUST 2010

Download photo here: http://bit.ly/9bUXFL

HUNDREDS OF PROTESTERS RALLY AGAINST GIANT WIND TURBINES

HUNDREDS of Save Our Silton (SOS) protesters turned out to join a rally against plans to build four giant wind turbines in North Dorset.

The demo was held on Sunday 29 August 2010 at Whistley Farm, Milton-On-Stour near Gillingham, a farm less than a kilometre away from the proposed site where Ecotricity wants to build four turbines 394ft high. These three-bladed machines would be the tallest man-made structures in Dorset, higher than the surrounding hills, visible up to 7.5 miles away.

More than 350 people turned out to show their support. North Dorset MP Bob Walter and Dorset county councillor Andrew Cattaway spoke to the crowd.

The crowds were addressed by speakers on a megaphone and marched to the top of the hill, where SOS are flying a blimp to illustrate how tall the turbines will be if North Dorset District Council allows them to be built.

SOS chairman Chris Langham said: ‘I was delighted that so many people turned out especially on their Bank Holiday weekend, to send out the message loud and clear to Ecotricity that we don’t want their turbines here.

‘We also want Ecotricity to know that we will be further challenging their planning application when it is discussed by the North Dorset District Council development control committee.

‘Ecotricity has spent 18 months measuring the wind levels in Silton, yet its revised application is based only on average national windspeeds - so it does not look like they have got a very strong argument to support their case for destroying the landscape.

‘We say: there is not enough wind in Silton to power the turbines - so take them away!’

More than 1,200 objections have been received by North Dorset District Council. The closing date for comments is 15 September.

Mr Langham added: ‘I strongly urge everybody who cares about keeping Dorset an area of outstanding natural beauty to formally object to these monstrous plans.

‘All comments must cite the application’s number, which is 2/2010/0731/PLNG and go to Development Control Manager, North Dorset District Council, Nordon, Salisbury Road, Blandford Forum, Dorset, DT11 7LL.’

NOTES TO EDITORS:

To arrange interviews, photographs, or filming opportunities, or to seek further information, please contact Emily Pykett at Watershed PR. Telephone: 01308 420 785 or email emily@watershedpr.co.uk

ENDS

Press Release 18th August 2010

 MORE THAN 1,000 OBJECT TO WIND TURBINES PLAN FOR SILTON

 North Dorset District Council has been swamped with objections as over 1,000 people joined the campaign to stop giant wind turbines destroying a Dorset beauty spot. The planning department has confirmed that more than 1,000 objections have been received since Ecotricity submitted an application last month to build four 394ft high turbines in Silton.

These three-bladed machines would be the tallest man-made structures in Dorset, higher than the surrounding hills, visible for more than 10 miles. Ecotricity’s original application for six turbines, submitted two years ago, was the most unpopular planning application Dorset has ever seen. Those 1,987 objections contributed to North Dorset District Council’s development control committee’s unanimous rejection of the plans. Chairman of the Save Our Silton (SOS) campaign, Chris Langham, has urged even more people to object to the plans this time round.

 He said: ‘We are encouraged by the fact that some 1,000 people have already written letters of objection to NDDC. ‘Today our members have been manning a stand at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show, where over 200 more letters of objection have been written and signed. ‘SOS is hoping to persuade even more people to object before the consultation closing date of 15 September. Silton has below average wind speeds. These turbines would not produce much power, but they would grab Ecotricity about £1m a year in subsidy.’

Tim Allard, who with his wife Debbie and two young sons own a farm less than a kilometre away from the proposed turbine site, said: ‘The response we got from supporters at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show was most heartening. ‘They were all asking why we have to go through all this again and try to protect an area where there’s not enough wind to power turbines efficiently.’

Members of Gillingham Town Council and Pen Selwood Parish Council have already unanimously rejected the plans and recommended that North Dorset District Council (NDDC) throw them out. Mr Langham added: ‘We must not be complacent. We need everyone who is concerned about the unspoilt Dorset countryside to put pen to paper – or send an email – today, otherwise it will be too late. ‘

All comments must cite the application’s number, which is 2/2010/0731/PLNG and go to Development Control Manager, North Dorset District Council, Nordon, Salisbury Road, Blandford Forum, Dorset, DT11 7LL.’

ENDS