Why wind power is expensive non-starter (From Wirral Globe)

Why wind power is expensive non-starter

12:02pm Tuesday 21st August 2012 in Letters

Why wind power is expensive non-starter

I SHARE your correspondent Kenny Peers’ dislike of the large energy producers (Globe Mailbox, August 8).

However we have to live in the real world. Wind energy is an expensive non-starter, which is also creating a profiteering, false claiming, mega-industry.

The problem is that the 'wind' is only in the right speed range to generate power for 30% of the time. This year a Civitas analysis showed that the back up power stations needed to compensate for lack of wind power 70% of the time, would generate more CO2 overall than an equivalent modern, steady operation, gas station. That is point one.

Point two is the hackneyed claim that affordable fossil fuels will soon run out.

In fact gas and oil shale reserves around the world will last for centuries, hopefully more than long enough for us to develop clean fusion power generators.

Meanwhile we have little choice but to build nuclear and clean conventional stations or go back to candles.

However considering it's 100% reliability and up to 90% proven energy efficiency it is a puzzle that governments have not bitten the bullet and tapped into the tidal energy sources around Britain such as the Severn estuary.

The French successfully combined nuclear and tidal energy for decades. Lets stay with the facts and keep wishful thinking and propaganda, green and counter-green, out of the debate.

Professor D P Gregg Spital