Blowing away the myths

Wind turbines. Don’t you just hate ‘em? Hideous inefficient eyesores, ruining the view... Rubbish, says Roger East. For anyone else who’s tired of the constant barrage of anti-wind propaganda, here’s some timely ammunition.

Picture a flipchart, recording a ‘brainstorm’ on wind power’s pros and cons. What’s on the plus side? Necessary. Available. Familiar. Non-polluting. Practical. Economically viable. Government-endorsed. Can create jobs, income for farmers, local involvement. Safe. Scaleable, from micro upwards. ‘Reversible’ – turbines can easily be removed. Beautiful....

And on the minus side? Unnecessary. Trivial contribution to energy needs. Can’t compete without subsidies. Unreliable – works only on windy days. Lethal to birds. Noisy. Ugly, disfiguring the countryside. Well, not every wind power enthusiast would want to go down the beauty contest route. But “visually intrusive, especially in landscapes we love” is about the only really serious point on the downside.

So much of the storm that has been whipped up against wind relies on the repetition of misguided myths – and deliberate distortions. So it’s time to go myth-busting. Here are the top 10. Look through the hyperbole for the reasoned response. Then try the challenge that wind’s critics can’t evade: what have you got that does the job better?

‘They will carpet the country’

No-one is proposing anything of the kind. Even the most ardent turbine-hater shouldn’t, in all conscience, raise this spectre. Do the sums. If modern turbines have a 2MW-4MW capacity, we’re probably looking at building about 1,500 on land (on top of about 1,000 older turbines already in action).

That, plus a similar number at sea, would deliver wind’s (major) share of the UK’s 2010 renewables target. Thereafter, the big wind farming future lies offshore – and older land-based turbines, when they come to the end of their useful life, can be dismantled, recycled, and the land reseeded.

“Just 1,500 more turbines on land and a similar number at sea would deliver what we need for 2010.”

1,500 more turbines is a far cry from the scaremongers’ scenarios. And they’ll still need planning permission – although the government, conscious that the long, slow and uncertain planning process was discouraging development, has taken steps to lower the bar for new projects. Its new guidelines (‘PPS22’, in the arcane official jargon) impose a presumption for approval on planning authorities.

‘We’ll get by without them’

Only if we could go on getting fossil fuels securely and affordably, and go on burning them in blithe disregard of climate change. On current trends we’ll be importing three-quarters of our primary energy by 2020, relying increasingly on supplies from politically volatile regions – while the demands of other countries like China rise massively, and world production of oil and gas goes into decline. You don’t have to be a paranoid green activist to be worried about energy security [see 'Safe Futures?'].

Or about climate change. Unless you are in deep denial, deeper delusion or deepest seclusion, you probably know the score. We can only tackle it by making deep cuts in carbon emissions – and that means cutting back massively on the fossil stuff....

‘We’ve got better alternatives’

Clean coal? It’s still a fossil fuel. Burning it better just means doing the wrong thing less badly, because we’re in a pinch and panicked by our electricity ‘generation gap’. As for nuclear, we bought that high-risk pig in a poke once before. Luckily we lived to count the cost.

Even in ‘peacetime’, nuclear power is expensive, its operations carry the risk of catastrophe – and, with no solution to the radioactive waste disposal issue, they’re completely unsustainable. Wave power? Potentially exciting technology, yes, but not yet. And we can’t put off action for two or three decades in the hope of being baled out by the advent of the hydrogen economy or a breakthrough in nuclear fusion.

‘We’ll just use less’

If you’re aiming at a carbon dioxide reduction target, you have three strings to your bow – use less energy, waste less, and produce more from zero-emission renewables. Where’s the evidence that we can hit even the nearest target – let alone the more distant ones – with just the first two strings? Using less means lifestyle changes, not just greener gizmos.

It need not all be deep green hair shirt stuff, but the sobering truth is that our lifestyles are becoming ever more energy-intensive. Despite a slew of efficiency improvements, energy consumption rose 7.5% during 1995-2000. Wasting less should be a no-brainer, but we don’t have a great track record, even on energy-efficiency investments with rapid payback periods – just look at the lightbulbs we use, and the heat loss from the average house. And improvements get harder, once you’ve harvested the low-hanging fruit....

‘Wind’s contribution is trivial’

Wrong. Short term, wind’s the main road to the government target of 10% of power from renewables by 2010. And it can contribute more. Britain is unusually blessed in this regard – we’re the windiest country in Europe.

Theoretically, onshore wind could meet 80% of our current electricity demands – and offshore wind could sort us out 10 times over. Those aren’t wind lobby sums, they’re from the Department of Trade and Industry. The coming generation of 200-250 turbine offshore wind farms will be comparable in capacity with gas power stations.

‘Turbines mostly stand idle’

“If the wind does not blow, we are snookered,” says East Lothian MP Anne Picking. But the rumour that turbines only work 30% of the time is a case of Chinese whispers. They typically produce electricity 70-85% of the time.

Output varies at different wind speeds, and does indeed average out around 30% of the theoretical maximum – but no form of power generation currently used in the UK gets remotely close to 100% efficient. The average ‘load factor’ for all suppliers of the national grid works out around 50% – and part of the point of the grid is to cope with variations in supply.

‘It’s too expensive’

Opponents tend to wave reports around stating that wind farming costs more than twice as much per kilowatt-hour as most fossil fuels. But land-based wind is actually one of the very few renewable sources ready to compete on price in today’s marketplace. At 3-4p per kilowatt hour, it’s a good match for new coal (2.5-4.5p per kilowatt-hour) even without the benefit of subsidy.

“One of the few renewables ready to compete on price today.” Offshore wind isn’t competitive – yet. And developing the renewables sector does depend on subsidies. Noel Edmunds calls this “a con”.

But wind power has got 80% cheaper over the last 20 years. Extrapolate that to 2024.... And if you factor in the cost of environmental damage, the price of electricity from coal rises threefold. Building new nuclear plants wouldn’t produce power for under 4-7p per kilowatt-hour – even leaving out the eventual, hefty costs of decommissioning them.

‘The mass bird kill’

“Turbines chop up birds and bats,” says David Bellamy, who has lately taken to calling them “weapons of mass destruction”. Birds do collide with wind turbines, and the RSPB has objected to badly sited projects which could pose a threat to particular species. But it says it has “not so far witnessed any major adverse effects on birds associated with wind farms” in the UK.

It felt sufficiently confident to back an on-site nature reserve around the Moel Moelogan wind farm, providing a haven for lapwings and curlews. “It’s all about sensitive siting,” says RWE npower’s Kevin McCullough. “We don’t put them in the middle of bird sanctuaries. They do not, absolutely, categorically, kill thousands of birds.” Monitoring at Blyth off the Northumberland coast suggests one to two collisions there per year per turbine. To put this in perspective, more than 10 million birds are killed by cars in the UK every year. And what’s an even bigger threat to bird populations? Climate change.

‘They’re too noisy’

A common complaint is what Christopher Booker in the Sunday Telegraph calls “the monotonous ‘whump’ of these blades”. “Noise is always relative, always subjective,” says McCullough. With modern turbines, he speaks of the aerodynamic ‘swoosh’ of the blades passing the tower, which “some people find soothing, others don’t”. Again, sensitive siting helps.

Turbines in open countryside can be placed downwind of houses; while the noise of those in urban areas will partly be screened by the hum of the city life. Who should you listen to? People who’ve actually visited a wind farm?

One poll of visitors recorded 64% disagreeing with the statement that the turbines were noisy – compared with 37% among the general public. Meanwhile, Defra has investigated – and dismissed – panics about low level humming causing ill health.

‘Everyone hates turbines’

Certainly our self-appointed Country Guardians do. This group’s chair, Angela Kelly, calls them “cloned mechanical monsters”. Its vocal vice-president Sir Bernard Ingham has branded them “alien bogbrushes in the sky”. But surveys show that those who live close to working wind farms are more likely than not to be supportive.

Asked if they’re a ‘blot on the landscape’, respondents in one poll were split between those who’d actually seen them (59% disagreed) and those who hadn’t (43% disagreed). Animals don’t seem to mind. Livestock graze right up to turbines on farmland, and conservation studies show seals coexisting happily with offshore turbines at Scroby Sands.

What Roy Hattersley describes as “elegant arms waving... through the mist” can even become tourist attractions. Opposing sides of the dispute cite different surveys, with one lot’s negative views lining up against the other’s visitors keen to return because of the presence of wind farms.

In the end it’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? Thousands take the turbine tour at Swaffham’s EcoTech Centre – but then again, even Sellafield has tourist visitors, and there’s plenty of nostalgia for Battersea power station.

VOX POP

10 November 2004

Roger East