Friday, December 31, 2010

"And winter's chill is on my heart..."

Go to the Artists Against Windfarms Facebook page to read more, and see a chilling foretaste of a possible future view from the top of the Burton Dassett Hills over the prospect of Broadview Energy's hugely destructive eye stealing proposals in Warwickshire's Shakespeare land, these words of Anne Bronte find a deep resonance. (Picture 75mm photo-montage)

Sunday, December 26, 2010

"Ocean-driven changes to the UK ’s weather systems threaten failure of wind power generation in winter. "



















This is one of the ways you can go if you want to see the Fullabrook Wind Power Station, which is being built this winter - across these fields and up onto the hills. That is, if you have skis, or can cope with paths so slippery that they are like ice rinks.


In the context of so many articles about the North Atlantic Oscillation written recently, ( such as this one, by Fred Pearce in the Daily Mail) here is a timely reminder of this paper that was published on the Country Guardian website several years ago:

http://www.countryguardian.net/Ocean.htm
by Prof.Em. Peter Cobbold


These sentences come from the Conclusion of Prof. Cobbold's paper:

"Governments have a responsibility to ensure that the nation’s electrical power supply is robust and secure. The safety of the UK’s population - especially the elderly, the infirm, those in fuel poverty, and the poorly prepared - should not be put at risk by commercially-driven stakeholders and implicit assumptions that the weather will not change."

I live in North Devon, only two or three miles from the site of the Fullabrook Down Wind Power Station, where the turbines will be erected soon. It has been bitterly cold here in North Devon over the last few days, especially on Christmas Day. If the weather is the same next year at this time, it will not be safe to walk along ancient Burland Lane, for fear of ice throw from the turbine blades.... if they are moving at all, that is, since we have had so little wind during the freezing weather. Let us hope there will be some other form of power still, such as that that comes -whatever the weather - courtesy of Hinckley Point nuclear power station.

Christine Lovelock

Friday, December 24, 2010

"A Wind Power Boonedoggle"

Just sent a link to this article from a friend in the USA. Remember T. Boone Pickens? Praised by Al Gore and Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader because he promoted wind power?

Read Robert Bryce's article in the Wall Street Journal (online) to find out what T. Boone Pickens is doing now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704368004576027310664695834.html

A quote from the article:

"...the free-market price for natural gas is about two-thirds of the subsidy given to wind. Yet wind energy still isn't competitive in the open market."

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

"Chris Huhne has a blueprint for a green, cold, dark Britain"

In this Sunday Telegraph article, Christopher Booker says that the government's new energy policy will lead to widespread power cuts and economic disaster.


If the government are worried now by unfavorable headlines about cold weather chaos, this will be nothing compared to the headlines in future winters, on freezing winter nights when all the thousands of new wind turbines stand still and silent.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

A most magnificant rant

James Delingpole has written several good articles about wind farms...

I remember an early one he wrote titled "Why I hate Cornwall" (or something similar) in which he said that Cornwall, with its tiny little turbines (by modern standards) had tricked people into thinking that wind turbines were inoffensive intrusions in the landscape.

This article in The Telegraph is indeed magnificent, expressing the fury that so many of us feel about the direction in which the Coalition's energy policies are taking us. Much has been made politically about the numbers of people who voted Lib Dem and found themselves landed with the Tory-led Coalition.

How many people, I wonder, voted for anyone but Nick Clegg, after his remarks in favour of wind energy during the debates? And then, to their dismay, they ended up with him, and Chris Huhne, in charge of energy policy. (Not to mention the fact that now Ed - "anti-windfarm campaigners should be socially unacceptable" - Milliband is now in charge of the Labour Party)

There is a real frustration out there that none of the political parties (except UKIP, who have no MPs in Parliament) have a sensible energy policy. All of the main parties have policies that could ruin us all through high electricity bills, leave us in the cold when the power runs out, destroy our industrial competitiveness by imposing targets that no one else will bother to meet, as well as - most ironically - choosing the course that is least likely of all to reduce our carbon emissions.

James Delingpole writes: (quote):

"Huhne’s energy plans are absurd and destructive and wrong on so many levels it almost beggars belief that they are not regularly the butt of TV comedy sketches, outraged newspaper Op Eds and furious protests everywhere from the City to all those parts of the British countryside about to be ruined by Huhne’s 500 foot high bird choppers (aka Hoo Sticks)"

How right he is - and you do not have to be a climate sceptic either, to agree with him on this.

Christine Lovelock

Monday, December 13, 2010

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Jeremy Vine

You can listen again to this programme where the spotlight is on wind farms:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wdfjv

Speaking on the programme: Professor Philip Scott (introducing the technology) Professor Tony Marmont in favour of wind farms and campaigner Bob Graham speaking against them.



Thursday, December 9, 2010

"Wind turbines are hazardous to human health"

Read this report on www.windturbinesyndrome

How much longer will the wind power companies continue to minimise the noise problems caused by wind turbines? What remains particularly shocking is the fact that that in most cases there is no compensation made to those who lose the value of their homes.

In this article, mention is made of the fact that infrasound can disturb people living up to 5 kilometres away, as it can travel "greater distances than the sound you normally hear, (which is why elephants and whales use it to communicate.)" (quote)

How can Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Coalition Government, Labour, the Green party, in fact nearly all environmental groups - all of whom are supposed to care about the environment and that natural world - be so much in favour of offshore as well as onshore wind?

Some links about the effects of undersea noise on whales:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7003587/ns/technology_and_science-science/

http://www.whales-online.net/eng/2/2-3-3.html

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Tax Payers Alliance Video


Do watch this very important video by the Tax Payers Alliance.