‘Tracks’ are actually 5 metre wide roads of crushed stone with soil and rubble piled alongside

Construction of turbine bases

Turbine base with concrete (note person top left)

Turbine sections en route (1)

Turbine sections en route (2)

Getting turbine sections up hills

Delivery of generator section (Nacelle)

Huge machine holds turbine sections upright

Erected column & nacelle

Erection of columns. Moudy Mea in 2010?

Delivery of turbine blades

Blade attachment

Almost complete

Black Law w/f, Forth, Scotland. 12 turbines 330 ft high – note Transit van

Conclusions 1.Building wind power stations is heavy engineering on a massive scale 2.There will be inevitable damage and destruction 3.The risk of siltation and run off is high 4.Such structures cannot be ‘mitigated’ 5.The visual damage will last a generation or more

Outline 1.A brief look at the proposal 2.Building a wind power station on Moudy Mea 3.Misconceptions and myths about wind power

MISCONCEPTIONS Britain has a huge wind resource which can meet most of our power needs WRONG

Annual to to to to to to to 36.0 Mph Guernsey = 14.1 mph Jersey = 13.0 mph ‘The climate of the UK and recent trends’. Published by the UK Climate Impacts Programme and the Meteorological Office. December 2007 MET OFFICE UK WIND SPEEDS

110 days Wind speeds in the UK – Met Office data

73% 27% Typical wind turbine power curve

73%27%

What this means for electricity supply A wind farm will produce no electricity for up to 110 days a year (3.5 months) It will run at less than 25% of its potential output for a further 150 days (5 months) So we will only have significant electricity production for about 100 days a year

So how do we manage on low wind days? We use BACK UP using coal and gas fired power stations

Homes supplied Developers always state that a certain number of homes will be supplied. In reality; NO homes will be supplied for 110 days a year Only about a quarter of those claimed will be supplied for another 150 days. WITHOUT BACK UP FROM COAL OR GAS- FIRED POWER STATIONS WIND WOULD TOTALLY FAIL DOMESTIC USERS

A lesson from Germany

MYTH Wind farms can replace nuclear power WRONG

Base load and demand Maximum ever UK demand was for 54,431 MW on December 10 th 2002 BASE LOAD – MAINLY NUCLEAR

Submission to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee Inquiry into the Economics of Renewables from Eon (UK) ‘…if the UK required 40,000MW of wind capacity to met its renewables target by 2020, only 8% (3,600MW) could be relied upon to meet peak winter demand. This means that 36,400MW of renewable capacity would need to be backed up by thermal plant’. Ref: SC/07-08/EA311

What does this mean? 36,400MW of new back up would require the building of; 20 to 30 new coal-fired new power station OR 40 to 70 new gas-fired power station TOTAL COST = over £200 billion

MISCONCEPTION Wind power stations reduce greenhouse gas emissions VERY LITTLE IF ANY

VANISHING CO 2 SAVINGS Mid- 1990s Dirty coal BWEA 2000 DTI mix OFGEM, DEFRA & GOVT TODAY DEFRA 2010

Quotation from the UKERC Report, The Costs and Impacts of Intermittency’, March 2006 ‘Actual CO 2 savings are dependent on what fossil fuel plant is displaced, reduced by efficiency losses in thermal plant ……’ Seimens, Science in Parliament 60/2, April 2003 ‘A 2% loss of efficiency in a coal-fired power station can increase CO 2 emissions by 10%’

ARE THERE ANY SAVINGS? “When plant is de-loaded to balance the system, it results in a significant proportion of the plant operating relatively inefficiently…… …..it has been estimated that the entire benefit of the renewables programme has been negated by the increased emissions from part loaded plant…….” David Tolley (Innogy plc), Jan 2003, Address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

CATOTELM ACROTELM DRAINAGE AT CEFN CROES

Ditching round a turbine base

CO 2 pay back time for Stainmore wind power station CO 2 pay back time for Stainmore wind power station if no peat on site=2.3yrs If average peat depth is 1 metre=11.5yrs If average peat depth is 2 metres=21.6yrs Assumptions 12 X 2.5MW turbines, LF = 30%, 12km of ‘track’, 1 borrow pits, 15,000 tonnes of aggregate, 12,000 concrete, CO 2 displaced at 0.37t/MWh

What does the CO 2 saving really mean? If Stainmore is 12 x 2.5MW turbines the developer will claim a saving of 29,170 tonnes of CO 2 each year (based on 0.37t/MWh) You may well say that is a lot to save BUT look at it another way

What does the CO 2 saving really mean? If Stainmore saves 29,170 tonnes of CO 2 each year The Kingsnorth coal-fired power station proposed for Kent will emit 21,978 tonnes per DAY

MYTH We can’t meet our future targets without a massive wind power programme FALSE