'We need the unbiased facts’ (From Wirral Globe)

'We need the unbiased facts’

2:45pm Wednesday 14th February 2007 in Haunted Wirral

THE controversial issue of wind turbines has seen hundreds of Globe readers responding to our recent series of articles highlighting how a major new wind farm is destined to be built ten miles off the peninsula's coast.

This week, we have invited Cllr David Elderton to write a column stating why he is against the expansion of wind farms near Wirral. And to put the opposing view, we have also invited Patrick Cleary, the Green Party candidate for West Kirby and Thurstaston ward, to explain why he thinks they are vital...

In contributing to this debate - as a graduate engineer with an industrial and technical background - may I make it clear that the views expressed below are purely personal and deduced from information gathered over many years. They are not related in any way, shape or form to the policy or views of any local or national political party - but rather they are an earnest attempt to assemble those facts in an objective and unbiased manner to permit proper future strategic decisions to be made on power generation.

The Globe has taken a welcome lead in initiating much-needed debate over the controversial issue of wind turbines.

Their poll makes interesting reading - showing that over 60% of the local public 'believe' them to be the solution to our future power generation needs.

With the greatest respect to those who conducted the poll, I fear that they have slightly missed the point - which is not whether the public 'believe' wind turbines to be an OK solution - but whether or not they actually are the answer...

"The Globe has taken a welcome lead in initiating much-needed debate over the controversial issue of wind turbines."

David Elderton

Had a poll been conducted around 400 years ago, more than 90% of the population would have eagerly confirmed their belief and conviction that the earth was flat.

In fact, those who thought it was a sphere rotating round the sun were imprisoned for their beliefs. 300 years later, the tobacco industry convinced the public that smoking was actually good for you and benefited health.

Most of us now know both of these beliefs to be incorrect.

Much as it might seem an attractive idea, we cannot base the viability of wind farms - as strategic future generating policy for the United Kingdom - upon opinion polls. The only way that the right decisions will ever be made is as a result of objective research and unbiased scientific analysis of the facts.

If these wind turbines were efficient, provided constant power all the time and were cheap to manufacture, erect and maintain - the visual intrusion would clearly be more acceptable.

But this is not the case.

Let us look at some of those facts and their implications for all of us.

In his foreword to the recent Energy White paper, Our energy future - creating a low-carbon economy (TSO, 2003) the Prime Minister confirmed that UK energy policy seeks to satisfy four goals:

Environmental Protection

Security of Supply

Affordable energy, even for the poorest

Competitive energy markets to ensure low cost energy for producers and consumers, ensuring industrial competitiveness.

The Energy White Paper itself and subsequent developments suggest that scant recognition has been given to the genuine unbiased professional concerns expressed by organisations such as the Institute of Civil Engineers, all of whom have offered very serious criticisms of government policy - but have received little publicity in the media.

Their principal concerns are: The government has not planned to ensure security of electricity supply. 'Therefore over-commitment to gas in the medium and short term, is now all-but unavoidable.

In layman's language, our ability to respond to power shortage emergencies is steadily reducing at a time when needs are increasing and we are developing an over-reliance on wind power generation.

The government has not fully grasped the degree of wind generation required to match the capacities needed to meet its targets The Energy White Paper mentions a desire for 10,000MW'renewables generating capacity' by 2010. This amounts to no less than 5,000 modern wind turbines round the United Kingdom. Even if development on this scale is feasible or acceptable (which it is not), it is not evident that sufficient wind resource is available to meet the demand.

Wind farm developers routinely quote an average capacity factor of 0.3, (in other words only about 30% efficiency) but according to figures published in the recent Ofgem report on renewables (2004) - and analysed by REF - the actual achieved figures so far are much lower (0.25 for Scotland, 0.24 for England, and 0.23 for Wales - that is less than 25% efficiency).

In some areas, the average wind generation efficiency taken over a 365 day cycle is as low as 11%.

This reflects the unassailable fact that wind power generation at any given time is totally unpredictable as it is (unsurprisingly) related directly to the power of the wind.

Wide spread power black outs in Europe last November reported in the press were triggered mostly by over reliance on German wind turbine generators which failed to deliver the goods - This mistake must not be repeated here.

In fact, wind farm owners very rarely make available production data from UK wind farms. They don't do so because accurate calculation is almost impossible and - if put in the public domain - would not necessarily support their aims Some slightly older readers will remember the dynamo clamped onto the bycycle wheel generating electricity for lighting at night. When peddling hard, the light was bright, when stationary, the light went out. This is a perfect analogy of the intermittency of wind powered generation.

National generation strategy cannot be allowed to rely on the whims of the wind without alternative back up capacity Another seldom appreciated factor is that wind power is not 'free of charge' - as some would like us to believe.

The real cost of wind power - taking into account turbine manufacture, massive turbine foundations, installation, heavy duty power cable connections, maintenance and 'mortgage financing' of the continuing cost over many years - is currently between 2 and three times the cost of current conventional fossil fuel and nuclear generation.

If wind turbine operators were not heavily subsidised by tax payers (us), their operations would not be remotely commercially viable.

The Ofgem report is the most comprehensive data set available to those outside the wind industry - but it is not sufficiently comprehensive to serve our needs.

The main point made by the Renewable Energy Foundation is that there is a very serious lack of accurate information about wind power at present.

We must not allow our future generation policy to be founded on optimistic and biased beliefs - but rather on scientifically researched data.

There's a duty to push forward"

We have to embrace renewable energy if we are to tackle the threats posed by climate change and energy security, says Patrick Cleary.

Firstly, there is an overwhelming moral case in favour of embracing renewable energy. Hardly a week goes by without a further report emphasising the now irrefutable link between greenhouse gas emissions and changes to our climate. Given that Britain led the world into the carbon age we now have a duty to take a lead in developing the low carbon technologies of the future.

As an established source of renewable energy, wind power clearly has a major role in this respect. Leaving aside any moral arguments in favour of renewable energy, the economic arguments are compelling.

The recent Stern review clearly demonstrated that, left unchecked, the economic costs associated with climate change would be astronomical. It showed that early action will be far more cost-effective than dealing with the full impacts of unchecked climate change.

Those impacts are already being felt in the form of rising insurance premiums and increased public expenditure on flood defences. The economic case is overwhelming.

However, there are more fundamental economic arguments compelling us to embrace wind power. At the moment, virtually all of our energy is derived from non-renewable resources - principally fossil fuels but also uranium, which provides nuclear energy.

Over time, these resources will become depleted, forcing us to rely on natural sources of energy. This is by no means a distant prospect and we are all familiar with the soaring cost of energy in recent years. Indeed there is a growing realisation that global oil production is already reaching a peak and, with a soaring world population and rapid industrialisation in China and elsewhere, we are certain to see further sharp increases in energy costs.

David Elderton has correctly drawn attention to this issue. Indeed, the UK is now horribly exposed to future energy shocks. Our domestic gas supply is plummeting and we are now a net importer of oil as output from the North Sea is rapidly depleting. As a result, our trade deficit with the rest of the world hit its highest ever level in 2006 and we are increasingly at the mercy of some of the most volatile countries in the world to secure our energy needs.

In this respect, the failure of successive governments to address our wasteful use of energy is not only environmentally irresponsible but has also exposed our economic wellbeing to events outside our control.

We would do well to follow the example of Sweden, which has instituted a national plan to radically reduce its dependence on oil by 2023. Nuclear is not the answer. While David Elderton seems to understand the threats posed by our rapidly diminishing energy security, his embrace of nuclear power as a solution is highly questionable. Indeed, given the astronomical subsidies paid to nuclear power generators over the decades, it is especially hypocritical to bemoan the relatively puny government incentives for renewable technology. However, there are more serious arguments against nuclear. The most fundamental environmental principle - one that all children are taught- is that you don't make a new mess until you have cleared up the old one. To start building a new generation of nuclear power stations before we know what to do with the waste produced by existing plants is grotesquely irresponsible. This means that nuclear power is simply not viable economically once the costs of waste disposal and monitoring over thousands of years are factored in. Additionally, nuclear power plants are uninsurable, forcing governments to bear all of the risks. If nuclear power really is the answer then why is the private sector so reluctant to invest? Indeed, the only nuclear power plant to be built in Western Europe in recent times has been massively subsidised by the Finnish government. Additionally, the facility is already almost two years behind schedule and subject to massive cost over-runs. It has also become clear that we will never rid the world of nuclear weapons if we do not also rid it of nuclear power. Every state which has sought to develop a weapons programme over the past 30 years has done so by manipulating its nuclear power programme. We cannot deny other states the opportunity to use atomic energy if we do not forswear it ourselves.

Wind power is viable.

There is of course a huge debate surrounding the ability of wind power to effectively meet our energy requirements. On the one hand, supporters of wind power point to Britain's massive wind resources and its theoretical capability to produce a large proportion of our electricity.

Opponents like David Elderton claim wind is hopelessly inefficient and cannot make a meaningful contribution.

The correct answer is almost certainly somewhere in between. However, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that off-shore wind power can meet a significant proportion of our energy demands. Take Denmark, which has pioneered wind technology and built a huge export industry on the back of its expertise. It currently meets around 20% of its electricity requirements from wind even though it has a poorer resource than the UK. In Germany, where government support for wind power has been far more robust than in the UK, over 70,000 jobs have been created in the past five years alone.

Finally, we must remember that renewable technologies are in their infancy with huge potential for further advances. The failure of our politicians to fully embrace them is doing enormous damage to the battle against climate change and undermining our economic security. We have a duty to ourselves and future generations to really push these technologies forward.

Otherwise we will all pay the price.