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Sound and fury, but not science, behind UK’s anti wind energy lobby

But ‘the biggest threat to our valued landscapes is climate change. Onshore wind is the cheapest source of low-carbon power, and restricting its development would jeopardise our firm commitment to offer value for money to the consumer, as well as green energy. 

Bashing wind,  Environmental Rsearch, 28 July 12 A new report from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says on-land wind projects can threaten the ‘beauty and tranquility of much-loved landscapes.’…. The CPREs report ‘Generating light on landscape
impacts: How to accommodate onshore wind while protecting the countryside’, calls on the government to provide more clarity on the total number of onshore wind turbines it expects will be installed, and wants the capacity of the landscape to accommodate wind turbines
‘without unacceptable damage’ to be formally taken into account in planning decisions. It also says the wind industry should be made responsible for decommissioning turbines and restoring the landscape once they stop working or when they reach the end of their useful
life.

This seems very reasonable, although most planning consents include a
site clean up requirement and CPRE also seem a bit confused about
numbers, at one point evidently talking of 41,000 or even 12,000
turbines. The wind industry said that actually only 1,826 turbines
were planned for England at present, as part of a total of 8,581 for
the entire UK and, according to Business Green, suggested that CPRE
might have been scaremongering by including offshore turbines…

RenewableUK’s Dr Gordon Edge, said: ‘Striking a balance between our
need for renewable energy to help combat climate change, while also
protecting the landscape we all cherish, is the role of our planning
system’. But ‘the biggest threat to our valued landscapes is climate
change. Onshore wind is the cheapest source of low-carbon power, and
restricting its development would jeopardise our firm commitment to
offer value for money to the consumer, as well as green energy. It’s
clear that only some locations are suitable for wind- but the way to
identify those is by assessing each wind farm on its own merits, not
the top-down approach the CPRE is proposing.’

RenewableUK quoted a recent Ipsos MORI poll that found 68% of rural
residents backed the use of wind power, compared to 66% of urban
residents. 62% of people living in the countryside found the visual
impact of wind turbines acceptable, compared to 57% of people in urban
areas.

Nevertheless, opposition has continued….
Tony Juniper, of Action for Renewables, added ‘The vast majority of
the people in this country, and especially those in rural areas,
understand the need for sensibly-sited wind turbines to build the
home-grown energy systems that will create jobs, attract investments,
generate power and ultimately saves us money. I don’t believe that an
unrepresentative minority using exaggerated statistics should be
allowed to stop the country reaping these benefits.’….
At the opening of the annual All Energy conference in Aberdeen in May,
Charles Hendry commented that ‘It is shameful that with some of the
strongest winds and highest tidal reaches in Europe, the UK is
currently third from bottom in the whole of the EU in its use of
renewables’, although, perhaps unsurprisingly, these words did not get
included in the final version of his speech as rendered on the DECC
web sit. http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/2012/07/bashing-wind.html

July 30, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, UK