The anti winders are using the same tripe everywhere, At both the Romney marsh (Kent)
and Hinkley Point (Somerset) they're using almost exactly the same overly emotional
and wildly exaggeratted 'reasons' to oppose them. Bellamy should,perhaps,be more
worried about keeping wildlife out of his beard.

This isn't exactly an unbiased and unemotional article in itself, now is it?

I'm not an anti-winder, I think they can look quite pretty (Haworth etc) and could make a real contribution to the UK's energy supply, but I do think that the current proposed site in Cambs is wrong. As I've said elsewhere, can we not look at each case on its own individual merits?

Dear Friends

Before labelling all the people who are critical about wind power as Tory NIMBY's, you should consider the following facts:

1. Wind power is an intermittent generating source - it needs conventional (or more reliable) 'spinning' back-up capacity to guarantee supply. Thus it does very little for the overall carbon burden.

2. Speculative developers are making huge profits at the expense of the tax-payer. Wind farms only earn 27p in the pound from electricity generation, the other 73p comes out of your pocket in indirect subsidy via trading in renewables obligation certificates - funded out of consumer bills.

3. The electricity industry itself is strongly critical of the way wind power development is destabilising the supply network. For the German experience - and remember they are way ahead of us in wind power capacity - see the E-ON 'Wind Power 2004' report:  http://www.eon-energie.de/bestellsystem/frameset_eng.php?choosenBu=eonenergie&choosenId=405
(they own Powergen, by the way; and much of our grid network).

Could go on and on about the negative carbon impact of building wind farms on moorland sites; the damage to human health from low-impulse sound in proximity to large wind farms and numerous other factors that the BWEA and the other people that are looting your wallets would rather not discuss.

It's surprising that a writer on Indymedia would swallow the claims put out by the trade group BWEA and the many developers who are subsidiaries of massive energy corporations anxious to take advantage of the tax shelters in renewable energy.

The picture accompanying the article shows a string of turbines in Amsterdam's harbour, an already industrial area. Most proposed sites, however, are in lightly developed rural areas and even many wilderness areas. The land rush should appall anyone, no matter what their conclusions about the industry's claims for their machines.

When big business is for it, especially if it involves favourable regulations and even whole new markets (ROCs) created by government, taking over hundreds of square miles of wilderness for private profit, and industrialising the countryside, my instinct is to cast a cold eye on that juggernaut.

For a start, note the claim that the Boxworth facility "could" provide enough energy to supply 20,000 homes. All facilities start this way, then after they are built, the promise moves on to new sites. But it is never shown how much energy from other sources has been reduced. The wind production figures are trotted out, but without any corresponding nonwind figures to make them meaningful. When one sees that wind power has not enabled Denmark to reduce their nonwind energy consumption, one begins to suspect that there are no meaningful data that can show an actual benefit from wind power -- certainly none that can justify the huge investment and sprawling industrialisation they require.

A good paper from a "progressive" viewpoint is featured at  http://www.aweo.org