Wind turbines are useless as generators of electricity - YP Letters

TERRY Morrell, (The Yorkshire Post, May 12), wanting wind turbines in his/her garden and roof, should trial them before favouring these almost useless generators of intermittent electricity.

“Almost” useless because only their foreign manufacturers, UK pushers and landowners benefit. We meet their costs, including money, despoliation of land to enjoy or for agriculture, limitless damage to ocean floor and seascapes. They kill avian wildlife.

Your correspondent should install a dummy, full-sized windmill.

There are additional drawbacks. They are not “green”, taking account of greenhouse gases released in manufacture and transport, material needs, servicing, lubrication, service life of less than 20 years and demolition. The huge blades demand landfill burial.

The “nimby” neighbours might react with scepticism!

Like all non-fossil fuelled alternatives, wind turbines are, essentially, a deceiving scam, without pilot studies before installation. They have been imposed on us, at vast costs, by uncaring, dopey politicians.

That costly, uncritical insult to us continues. Would canny Yorkshire people buy then run an expensive car without a test drive?

From: Dr GM Lindsay, Whinfield Gardens, Kinross.

In his letter (May 11) Tim Flairs challenges my assertion that renewable industry claims that wind generation is cheaper than fossil generation have been discredited. He bases his challenge on outdated “government data”.

This data was presumably based on the wholly unrealistic low bids submitted by developers in order to win Contract for Difference (CfD) auctions.

These bids have recently been discredited due to these developers delaying the implementation of their low priced CfD contracts in order to benefit from current much higher wholesale electricity prices – much to the annoyance of the government Ministers!

Furthermore Dr John Constable recently presented evidence to the House of Lords Industry Committee (September 2021) highlighting detailed analyses based on real-world published data from sources such as developers’ audited accounts and official power generation figures by Andrew Montford, Professor Gordon Hughes and others which show actual levelised costs of wind generation, including capex and maintenance, to be rising rather than falling. I rest my case.

Read: Wind turbine benefits outweigh disadvantages - David Behrens