Fenbeagle - brilliant as always!

http://fenbeagleblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/ting-a-ling/

Wind turbines and racehorses

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=18756

Tony McCoy - BBC Sports Personality of the year last year - has halted plans to build a £2m racing stable until he is sure that a wind turbine won’t be erected close to where his horses would exercise. Here is a quote from the above article:

"McCoy has stressed to the council that 25 jobs and £2m of investment would be lost to the area should he pull out altogether."

You can also read this in The Telegraph online:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8982541/Jockey-Tony-McCoy-scraps-plans-for-racing-stable-over-fears-windfarm-will-spook-horses.html

The Lambourn area is one of our most famous centres of excellence for racehorse training. Where one turbine comes, more nearly always follow. How many more jobs could be at risk if this wind turbine is allowed, and where will it end? Long Run, current Gold Cup favourite, is trained in Nicky Henderson's Lambourn yard, and is said to be a "fizzy" character, which is why he wears ear plugs in his races. He is a typical example of the kind of horse who could be spooked by a wind turbine. Racehorses are not family pets and they support a nationwide industry, that not only provides jobs but also gives great pleasure to so many people.

There are racing stables all across Britain, and if Chris Huhne gets his way there will be more and more wind turbines close to them. After all, by their nature, racing stables are usually situated in open countryside, close to hills. Will it be Lambourn first, and Ditcheat next?

Studies have shown that for every Green job that is created, 2.2 or more are lost, and this is a perfect example.

The poverty of Britain's energy debate

Fraser Nelson

A must read:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/7318578/the-poverty-of-britains-energy-debate.thtml

Here is how it starts:

"How big does Shale have to get before our policymakers wake up to its implications? There is an Energy Summit in No.10 today where Chris Huhne wants to focus on the need “to help consumers save money on their gas and electricity bills”. A preview interview on the Today programme underlined the dire situation. First, Huhne was not asked about how his own green regulations have massively contributed to the problem. Then, the managing director of British Gas was invited on to say that “unless someone discovers huge amounts of gas and imports it into the UK…”. And, bafflingly, no-one mentioned the small fact that one of BG’s rivals recently discovered 200 trillion cubic feet of gas near Blackpool. As Matt Ridley says in this week’s Spectator, that’s enough to keep the entire British economy going for many decades. And it doesn’t even need importing."

Do read the article, including the quotes from Matt Ridley's article as well.



It isn't just our policy makers, though, what about the BBC? On Friday they had Will Self "In praise of wind turbines" on Sunday Countryfile, which was about as biased as it could possibly be in favour of wind, and the Today Programme was no better.

Con with the Wind

As Chris Huhne is so much in the news at the moment, we thought it might be interesting to show this trailer for Nigel Spence's film, "Con with the wind" again.

Roger Helmer's blog

Those who think that saying "offshore not onshore" is a good tactical ploy to use when opposing onshore wind power have not usually done much research on the subject. If you are of this persuasion, look at the photographs on these two links for the Tiree Array and Llandudno.

Roger Helmer, MEP, has spoken out before on the wind power issue. This article is a good one, and highlights many of the problems connected with offshore wind power:

http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/meeting-the-main-man-of-areva%E2%80%99s-wind-energy-programme/

Here is one interesting quote from the article: "One large array in Denmark with a planned operating life of 25 years required all the turbines to be replaced or substantially repaired within eighteen months. "

Do read the full article - and the amusing Comment from Barking Spider, re the "Chris Huhne array"

"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.

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