Media should challenge claims of climate change industry

YOU reported (Yorkshire Post, August 31) the signing of the first two leases for the Hornsea offshore wind factory which came on a day, when to the embarrassment of the Government and the wind industry, there was little wind across the UK.

This meant that throughout the 24 hours, the 3,696MW of wind capacity metered by the National Grid was only able to supply an average of 81MW (2.19 per cent of metered capacity) to the Grid, and for a three-hour period, this dropped to 38MW (1 per cent of capacity).

Clearly, on such a day, which occurs not infrequently, the completed Hornsea complex would be supplying power to a maximum of 30,000 homes, not the three million claimed.

Your article compared Hornsea output to that of Drax, and it is important to understand that because of the natural intermittency of wind, conventional generating capacity equivalent to Drax will be required to back up the Hornsea wind turbines as their output rises and falls, and on Wednesday, all that capacity would have been required to cover the negligible contribution from the Hornsea installation. It should be incumbent on wind developers to specify where this back up is to come from.

These conventional generators are required to run at less than optimum efficiency as they ramp up and down to follow the short term variations in wind output, generating significantly more carbon dioxide than when operating in steady state. Dutch scientists estimate that this additional carbon dioxide will more than offset any savings.

You should ensure that any claims reported by wind developers are accurate and justified. The claim for Hornsea should have made clear that it would eventually provide an “average” of 4GW, assuming a certain load factor. Otherwise the claim is misleading and meaningless.

From: David F Chambers, Sladeburn Drive, Northallerton.

BILL Carmichael (Yorkshire Post, August 19) rightly questions what became of that ideal known as the scientific method. There can be few who are not aware of the message that an area of global warming is approaching. It will devastate the planet, and its coming is being accelerated by industrial activities.

These dire findings by certain climatologists should of course have been rigorously cross-examined straight away, but who was prepared to dispute an array of powerful computers as to input material and programming? And when the doctrine was embraced by such experts as Senator Al Gore, several Hollywood stars, Prince Charles, the BBC and the Church, what more could be said?

Those of us who, like Mr Carmichael, still dare to have doubts are labelled not merely sceptics (once an honourable term) but disbelievers and even heretics.

Hence the wind turbines, depletion of industry, fuel poverty and dependence on unreliable foreign sources for our energy supplies. I doubt if our grandchildren will have cause for gratitude.