Send those who approved wind turbines to Tower of London

I TOTALLY agree with Barrie Frost’s letter (Yorkshire Post, December 13) as well as many other people with regards to these wind turbines. I, too, believe they are hideous and blot the landscape of our beautiful countryside. I don’t understand why they have spent a fortune siting them out at sea either.

When the wind gets too strong (I believe it is 50mph) they shut the things down, all because the wind is too powerful and it’s dangerous to use them.

Yet we the taxpayers have to pay the generating companies even though the turbines are shut down. Now I am an ordinary chap with a reasonable intelligence, and I know that wind power is a waste of money for the UK taxpayer. What civil servant worked out the deal for wind power and what Minister signed off on it? They all want sending to the Tower of London.

For people that don’t know we actually live on an island surrounded by sea, and we have two tides guaranteed a day, the incoming and the outgoing. Why on earth are this Government not investing in wave power by using the sea’s natural resources?

I doubt we would have to shut these down when we have the spring tides. Then there are our natural river resources where we could generate hydro power. Some villages have set up their own schemes to save energy and sell on to the power generating companies. There is some thought for local councils to be going on with!

As for nuclear, we should have started building new reactors back in the 70s to maintain the status quo due to the dwindling coal resources. But when the government of the day stopped building nuclear power stations most of our brains decided to move to France and America, as they were still investing in nuclear power. We stuck with coal and buy most coal from overseas, Poland and other places. Then gas generators started to be built to break our dependency on coal. This was great until the price of gas went sky high. Gas, as we all know, is bought from Russia and other countries, and Russia has turned the taps off to the west before. They certainly could do it again!

So please can this Government get a grip and put some long term planning and investment into wave and nuclear power?

Then, just maybe, my grandchildren will be able to have electric light, with gas to heat the house and cook on at a reasonable price without having to remortgage their homes. As Mr Frost states in his letter, to help prevent flooding, our rivers, streams, and ditches they need to be kept clear and free flowing. So why not make full use of these rogues that are doing community service, task these with keeping our watercourses clean and tidy, which will help to prevent flooding?

From: Ron Firth, Woodgate Court, Campsall, Doncaster.

THE fact that the Government’s contest for the £1bn “green prize” was a sham (Yorkshire Post, December 17), comes as no surprise, as there was never a justifiable case for omitting Hatfield from the list of successful applicants, given that the EU had voted it the best scheme in Europe and had made available a total of £420m towards its further development. With Samsung and BOC also wishing to make a significant investment, all that was required was match funding of the EU grants by the Government.

In written answers to my letters to the DECC over the last year, I have been assured that the Government was fully committed to CCS and Hatfield was a contender for the £1bn available to advance this technology. The decision to ignore Hatfield and support the less worthy claimants in Scotland is disgraceful and demonstrates, quite clearly, that it is on political grounds and again that there is a total lack of honesty and integrity at the heart of the Government’s energy policy.

If the Government is serious about securing our energy future with low carbon energy at a reasonable price, then it needs to reduce the carbon element of the fossil fuels which still provide, with nuclear, the backbone of our energy.