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This page will feature contributions from
friends and supporters of the campaign. Please send
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My experience of wind
turbines - a letter by Gesuine Martin
How
the wind turbine supporters distort statistics - an article by
The Mountain Scenery of Wales -
an article by David Andrews
Do
electricity supply systems really need wind power? - an article by Alan Shaw
When the Wind Blows
- an article by Angela Kelly
Ruminations
on a Rural Idyll (ideal) - a poem by Ann Johnson
The Threat to Birds - an
article by David Wilcock
My experience of wind turbines
I have just
heard about the proposals for the wind turbines in the Ceiriog Valley. I
thought you might like to know of my experiences of living close to wind
turbines. I used to live approximately a mile away from the Llangwyrfon
turbines in mid-Wales (I am now in the same area, but a different house).
I could see them from my house, but the main problem was the noise. At
first I thought it was a lorry going slowly up the hill. Because I was
busy during the day I didn’t notice it that much. But I could hear it at
night, just as soon as my head hit the pillow, and I found it very
difficult to get to sleep due to the continuous whining. Finally I
realised that it wasn’t a lorry, but the wind turbines.
However, what
especially worried me was that the blades might fall off when my children were
playing nearby. One of the blades did fall off some years ago, though
luckily it didn’t hit anybody. The company then replaced all of the
blades, but I was afraid that if it had happened once it could happen again.
The
people of Llangwyrfon fought hard not to have the turbines; nobody wanted them
except the landowners, who got Ł6000 for having them on their land. They
lost, and everyone felt that things had been decided in advance, and that their
views didn’t matter. When the turbines came, they were as bad as we had
all expected. One man worked from home, and had to put up with the noise
all day long, and he was totally dissatisfied. Other people thought about
moving house. And why should we have to put up with this? We
don’t get anything out of it.
I was
appalled to hear that they want to put up these monsters in the beautiful
Ceiriog Valley. I would have written in protest had I know earlier.
As it is, I will be writing to your local councillor, telling her of my
experiences.
Mrs Gesuine Martin
top^
How
the Wind Turbine supporters distort statistics
Some Wind Turbine FACTS – not opinions-
Year 2002
Just
before Christmas Mr Brian Wilson the Energy Minister visited Carmarthenshire to
open a Wind Turbine complex near Pendine. It was from this site that he smugly
announced his approval for the giant scheme for 39 Turbines at Cefn Croes in the
rugged Ceredigion Cambrian mountains.
Let’s first
examine the hyped up public claim that the FIVE turbines at Pendine’s PARC
CYNOG “will power 4,000 homes” ;-
The five
turbines there are allegedly rated at maximum of 720 kw each.
720 kw multiplied by FIVE turbines = 3,600 kw or 3.6 megawatt maximum.
However due to
varying Wind conditions the average outputs are only at best 30% of maximum –
this makes Parc Cynog to be 3600 X 30/100 = 1080kw If we project that over a
year we get 1080 X 24 X 365 = 9,460,800 kw hrs.
It sounds an
awful lot. The average home consumes 4,200 kwhrs or units. Included in this
average are the great numbers of empty homes - new for sale; old for sale;
second homes; old being repaired etc distorting statistics.
So how many
homes would Parc Cynog power? Let’s divide 9,460,800 by 4200 = 2253
homes. This is not counting any industrial/factory; commercial; retail/shops;
workshops/offices; schools; street lights – nothing else! So if we get a
figure of 2253 homes – how do the propagandists get 4,000 homes? Remember this
includes EMPTY homes.
Please explain
– explain with FACTS NOT OPINIONS please. Yes FACTS, and remember the 30%
figure is a very generous average output for the figure 720kw – in which
case it would be LESS than 2,000 occupied homes and NEVER in your wildest
dreams 4,000 homes as stated.
Extrapolating
this to the monster CEFN CROES scheme for 39 turbines 325ft tall on Wales’
most scenic uplands rated at 1,500 kwhrs each MAXIMUM gives us 39 X 1,500
X30/100 X24 X 365 divided by 4200 = 36,604 homes of average consumption. This
does not include any offices or schools or any commercial or factories or shops
or retail or farms or street lights i.e NOTHING ELSE but average homes! So how
do they say Cefn Croes will supply 1% of ALL of Wales ? Answers please with
FACTS not opinions. Again remember that 30% average efficiency is a very
generous figure!
The next
proposal is for 165 turbines of 400 feet high in a swathe from Ystrad Fflur
(Strata Florida Abbey) scenic ridges to Abergwesyn / Llyn Brianne !
Bear in mind
that only about one third of global atmospheric emissions comes from electrical
generation. The vast majority of emissions comes from vehicle exhausts and
industrial processes and from domestic and commercial heating systems – and
most global emissions come from U.S.A.. Many Wind Turbine developers are
rapacious multi-national companies –including “Toxic Texans”.
From Councillor Ioan Richard at Swansea :-
23,Mountain Road, Craigcefnparc, Swansea,SA6 5RH Tel
01792 843861
top^
The Mountain Scenery of Wales
To me - as to you all, I am sure
- the idea of erecting 3 x 300ft wind
turbines in the beautiful Ceiriog Valley is a horrific prospect as it
threatens to deface permanently one of the most outstandingly beautiful areas of
Wales. I write not only as a native of Wrexham and as one who now lives just
above the Ceiriog Valley, but also as an author of a number of books on the
mountains of Wales, in both Welsh and English - Cant Cymru, The Welsh One
Hundred and Welsh Mountain Walks.
I have walked in almost every area of Wales - as well as England, Scotland and
Ireland (not to mention Nepal, New Zealand, Colorado, and most countries in
Europe) - and in my view the Ceiriog Valley has some of the most stunning
scenery in the British Isles. The view from Spring Hill, the site of the
application, is certainly one of the finest in the country. The deep personal
satisfaction, the joy and the spiritual renewal to be gained from unspoilt
country scenery are, in my opinion, things we must fight to preserve with all
our energy.
In my view, far from allowing this farmer to destroy the visual amenity in
this way, Wrexham County Borough Council would do well do seek to protect it
permanently - perhaps to seek National Park status for the Berwyn Mountains and
Glyn Ceiriog together. This is, after all, an area of quite exceptional and
extraordinary beauty. Once it is defaced and vandalized in this way, it can
never be the same again.
The Ceiriog Valley is already designated as an area where the Authority is keen
to promote tourism further. The Authority's documents on the subject speak -
quite rightly and with proper appreciation - of the Valley's beauty. I hope the
Authority will be see the obvious inconsistency involved in attempting to
promote tourism in the Ceiriog Valley whilst at the same time allowing
entrepreneurs and opportunists to deface it.
If, as I am, you are in favour of renewable energy, you may be aware that the
favoured option of many scientists, environmentalist and others is now
geothermal energy, which is more reliable than wind and which is everlasting.
But even if you favour the wind farm option, you will doubtless be aware of the
Rhyl Flats Off-shore Wind Farm currently being built off the coast of North
Wales. There is simply no need to spoil our finest upland countryside when there
are other means of producing renewable energy and when wind turbines can be
erected out at sea where they spoil no-one's visual amenity.
I would urge all the residents of the valley - and all those who visit the
valley to benefit from its beauty and tranquility - to do your utmost in
whatever way you feel able, to oppose the plan. The mountain scenery of Wales is
one of its greatest and most valuable assets. It is part of our heritage. It is
ours to protect.
David Andrews
Author and Translator
top^
PLEASE
FEEL FREE TO PUBLISH SUBJECT ONLY TO
NO EDITORIAL VARIATION WHATEVER WITHOUT MY AGREEMENT.
note
by Alan Shaw
Subject: Do electricity supply systems really need wind
power?
Prior to present
anxieties about climatic change due to greenhouse gas emisssions, culminating in
the Kyoto Protocol, wind turbines , like all other "renewable" forms
of energy were always quietly under continuous review by electricity supply
engineers the world over. Electricity has been generated by wind since the
experiments of Professor La Cour over a hundred years ago.
So why has nearly everyone else in mainstream electricity production been
hanging back?
The main criteria examined world wide were always reliability and cost of the
electricity produced in comparison with fossil fuelled, hydro and nuclear
power stations. Wind power for large central station applications always failed
but not only on economic grounds. - electricity consumers expect a
continuous supply 24 hours a day 365 days a year.
Wind turbines, because of the daily irregularity of wind speeds, as well as
having questionable economics compared to traditional large electricity
generators, can only average annually about thirty per cent of their maximum
continuous output rating in kilowatts or megawatts. Even this typical annual
"load factor" of about 30 per cent does not tell the whole story. On a
daily basis, 365 days in the year, there is absolutely no way of predicting for
any given 24 hours how many if any kilowatt hours of saleable electricity will
be produced.
Electricity systems can merely add wind turbines to their stable of large power
stations in the knowledge that over a year they can hope to obtain on a 30 per
cent load factor basis a random, "catch as catch can"
aggregation of kilowatt hours at no fuel cost but at a significant annual cost
in capital and operational charges.
They, the power companies, still have to maintain the same total megawatt
capacity of other, conventional plant as before in order to avoid "black
out" when the wind inconveniently fails to provide as much electricity as
the national or provincial load demands at any given moment. Electricity, in the
amounts required can not be stored. It must be consumed as fast as it is
generated.
So wind turbines are an additional capital charge on the system , not in any way
a replacement for other continuously controllable plant. They just save a very
small proportion of annual greenhouse gas production, small because of standby
losses still necessarily produced by equivalent capacity fossil fuelled plant
forced to remain on spinning reserve while the wind unpredictably blows. Nuclear
power stations produce no such emissions and can run almost indefinitely at full
load.
In large economic electricity systems the megawatt demand (nor the
instantaneous horsepower required to produce it) never falls even in
summer to less than the "base load", typically 40 per cent of the
annual mid winter peak. In the extreme Continental climates of North America
reliance on wind turbines without one hundred per cent replacement back up from
conventional plant would be fatal due to hypothermia for whole populations, as
Siberian electrical engineers know only too well.
So, until Kyoto, wind power was generally restricted to small experimental
installations and to applications in remote areas where there was absolutely no
other way of generating the small quantities of electricity required. Even then
consumers have to adjust their lifestyle to an unpredictable availability of
power, smoothed over by expensive emergency batteries.
Ask the dedicated yachtsmen and other "good lifers" living permanently
in the Balearic islands of the Mediterranean!
The only reason for the present world proliferation of wind energy
installations is the belief among large numbers of well meaning but almost
entirely non-technical political voters that the world must be saved, regardless
of economic cost, by swamping our electricity systems with vast numbers of
totally unpredictable generators of electricity from wind power. They neither
know nor care how much it costs nor how it fits or does not fit into the
requirements of a reliable public electricity supply system.
By no means all environmental scientists are sure that this reaction is
justifiable, but, while that debate still rumbles on, vast numbers of
electricity consumers are unwittingly approaching an abyss of long term
discomfort and unemployment due to increasingly large electricity system
failures caused by the vagaries of wind power.
Nantucket should debate the point with the individual grid control engineers who
understand the prospect they face in real terms. What about the relative cost of
such electricity as is produced? In market led organisations commercial secrecy
rules. Thus the truth is impossible of access by the public.
Good luck, Nantucket Sound, my heart bleeds for you!
© Alan Shaw BSc CEng MIEE (retired chartered electrical engineer)
25 Sears Close,
Aylsham,
Norwich, Norfolk NR11 6JB
(Tel 0044 (0) 1263 734923)
top^
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
The
proliferation of commercial wind ‘farms’ is a serious current and long term
threat to the countryside, the range of life forms and the ways of life that it
supports. The reality of the wind industry is a far cry from the superficially
attractive concept of electricity generated by windpower. Country Guardian (the
national campaign to oppose electricity generation by wind in unsuitable
locations and to promote energy conservation) believes that investing in
commercial wind power according to the Government’s policy to reduce CO2
emissions is misguided, ineffective and neither environmentally nor socially
benign.
The
organisation accepts that the countryside and the landscape have always changed
and will continue to do so but is also are concerned about the type, extent and
pace of change. Good planning is about balance. The irreparable ecological
damage, loss of amenity and the distressing divisions within communities caused
by commercial wind turbines far outweigh any benefit their insignificant and
unreliable contribution to our energy needs may bring with their correspondingly
small and uncertain pollution savings. The significant damage to the countryside
and huge financial burden cannot possibly be justified.
It
is the impact of these installations and their side-effects that are opposed -
not wind energy itself. Wind power can be a particularly useful method of
electricity generation for households, farms, estates and small communities
sited away from the national electricity grid. Installations may be acceptable
if they :-
a)
do not detract from the natural scale and character of the local and
neighbouring environments.
b)
do not endanger people living nearby, or those visiting the adjacent
countryside, either on foot or horse.
c)
do not blight the lives of people living nearby with noise, flicker and moving
shadows.
d)
do not create divisions amongst local people.
e)
do not lead to people becoming economically disadvantaged through reduced
property values.
f)
do not disadvantage the local economy and tourist industry.
Government
and Local policy should be supportive of renewable energy but always provided
that it does not create undue adverse impact on the countryside. The Countryside
Act of 1968 states:-
"In
the exercise of their functions relating to land under any enactment every
minister, Government department and public body shall have regard to the
desirability of conserving the natural beauty and amenity of the
countryside."
This
Act of Parliament carries great statutory weight and must remain the guiding
principle in matters affecting the countryside.
Policy
on renewable electricity generation must not be decided by developers anxious to
make money from Government or European Commission subsidies and grants. The
countryside is far too precious to be a football of political ideologies.
Country
Guardian is not a "NIMBY" ("Not In My Backyard")
organisation in the sense as used by the advocates of commercial wind
‘farms’ The stigma carried by such a label (implying self-interest above all
else) is a very effective and frequently used technique for suppressing
questions from people who quite legitimately and understandably are anxious to
know why gigantic industrial structures are suddenly appearing all over the land
and in their "back yards". The mindless accusation of "NIMBYism"
is contemptible - it seeks to denigrate our basic instincts to preserve our
environment in exchange for abstractions like ‘the global environment’ or
‘a green future’.
The
informed public are now aware that these gigantic industrial wind machines are
little more than symbols, or a salve to the ‘green’ and essentially urban
conscience of those who feel powerless to control the many excesses of our
wasteful, polluting society. Country Guardian shares those concerns but is
dismayed at the way in which they are exploited by those who are able to
manipulate public sympathies. Conservation of energy coupled with restraint in
use should be the first priority. It is the logical and common-sense answer to
our energy problems, along with improving the technology to clean up our fossil
fuelled power stations. The development of clean energy should not entail being
stampeded into the irreversible ruination of our fast-diminishing countryside.
Country
Guardian is by no means the only organisation to express deep concern about
commercial windpower. Over the past 10-12 years many well-known organisations
and experts have expressed similar reservations. In 1997 the Countryside
Commission said:
"We
do not feel it makes sense to tackle one environmental problem by creating
another"
The
Financial Times (20th May 1999) reported that "The National Trust, the
conservation charity,....denounced the "false hopes and flawed
solutions" offered by many "green energy" schemes, such as wind
farms and wood -fuelled power stations. "We shall not be seduced by what
appears to be 'green' renewable energy solutions which will make little real
difference to fossil use," the National Trust said. The charity added that
it was particularly concerned about wind energy."
Developers
claim that wind power makes a ‘significant contribution’ to offsetting
polluting emissions from fossil-fuelled power stations and thereby reduce the
effects of global warming. Professor Ian Fells of Newcastle University, a
world expert on energy, submitted evidence to the House of Commons, Trade and
Industry Committee, Energy Policy, in June 1998, that the [then] world’s total
output of wind energy was less than 5% of the UK’s requirement for
electricity. This would mean if all the tens of thousands of wind turbines in
the world could somehow have been centred on the UK we would still have had to
back up their unreliable output with an equal amount of conventional, reliable
power.
In
his comment on the HC194-I, Report and Proceedings of the (ETRA) Committee,
Vol.1, Session 1998-1999, Vol. 171-II. expert Professor M.A Laughton, FEng, of
London University wrote "Nowhere can I find any mention of reservations
expressed by either knowledgeable organisations or those who wish to protect the
environment. Instead the Committee urges the Government to even greater efforts
to produce a wholly unworkable electricity supply system to the ruination of the
landscape."
Edward
Luscombe, C.Eng., B.Sc. (Eng.), MIEE says "To us these windfarms are a
disaster in the countryside, we know their effect on ‘global warming’
is pathetically tiny, but to the Government they are seen as ‘proof
positive’ to a gullible populace that something really is being done to reduce
CO2 emissions."
"Prof.
David Bellamy writing in the Mid-Wales Journal on Friday July 18th 1997, claimed
the turbines did not make much electricity and were a ‘blot on the
landscape’. . . . . . ."they are not environmentally friendly."
Philip
Stott, Professor of Biogeography, University of London, in a Teletext of 8th of
December 1997 expressed similar sentiments:- "Climate will continue
to change catastrophically, gradually and unpredictably, whatever happens at the
Kyoto conference. We fool ourselves by thinking that we can "halt"
climate change by fiddling with one or two politically selected variables".
Repeatedly
one hears the phrase that wind energy is "better than
nuclear" from people who are well-motivated but either uninformed or
misinformed. The idea that weather-dependent wind farms’ could cause the
closure of huge nuclear power stations is a myth which is fostered by the
proponents of commercial wind ‘’farms’ in order to discredit their
opponents. Of course, wind power does not replace nuclear or
conventional power stations: it may displace some of their power for those
periods when the wind happens to be blowing between the cut-in and cut-out
speeds of approximately 11mph and 55mph respectively.
However
much we dislike nuclear power it is a fact that we obtain 25% - 30% of our
electricity from this source and if we cease to use it we shall have to burn
more fossil fuel producing more CO2 where there was none before. The ‘dash for
gas’ and nuclear power have enabled the UK to achieve its target for 2000.
Commercial wind turbines attract huge subsidies so it is no wonder that the
developers are trying to persuade the government to alter the planning system
and deprive the public of their democratic right to refuse to have these
gigantic, inefficient industrial machines invading and spoiling the
countryside and their lives. The wind industry is run by business men, so
naturally their main aim is to make money - as much as possible. They are not
environmentalists nor are they ‘green’.
Country
Guardian is frequently informed by councillors and planning officers that the
developers seek to libel our organisation as being ‘funded by the nuclear
industry’. This is simply not true.
The
following statements indicate quite the reverse.
Dr.
David Lindley of National Wind Power, when speaking in the House of Lords in
1998 said, "It should be said, first of all, so nobody thinks we are
anti-nuclear, it so happens we all work for companies which are involved in some
way in the construction of nuclear power stations so we are hardly
anti-nuclear".
Dr.
Ian Mays, when Chairman of the British Wind Energy Association and submitting
evidence to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee in March 1994 said "The
future, I believe, can only be renewables and nuclear in some sort of
combination."
The
public’s real-life experience of commercial wind ‘farms’ is being
expressed all over the UK in the form of rejection after rejection of planning
applications. The Government Inspector, David Lavender, in 1999, dismissed
National Wind Power’s Appeal to put the largest wind ‘farm’ in England on
Barningham High Moor. Summing up he said:- ". . . it seems to me that the
individual contribution to energy generation needs from High Moor would be
insignificant and unreliable, and that pollution savings would be both
correspondingly small and uncertain."
He
concluded that he could find:". . . nothing to persuade me that the
desirability of exploiting a clean, renewable energy resource at this prominent
skyline site outweighs other important policy considerations, which include
avoiding damage to attractive areas of landscape."
The
following points may help to illustrate how the Inspector could reach such a
decision :-
1)
"A five-fold increase in wind turbines would only replace1/1000th of the
fossil fuel use in the UK." (National Trust. "A Callfor the
Wild", May 1999)
2)
Government figures for windpower (UK), year ending June 1998, show an average
26.7% output of capacity from a total installed capacity of 318 MW.
Result
- about 85 MW of an intermittent supply of electricity (dependent on back-up)
from nearly 750 wind turbines. This would
not
be enough to run the QE2 at maximum power.The QE2 generates 90MW when operating
at maximum power - "sufficient to
light up the whole of Southampton" (Captain Carr). The supply is reliable.
3)
Statistics, based on ETSU figures for year ending June 1998, show the average
capacity of output from all the wind ‘farms’ in Wales (nearly 350 wind
turbines) at 24.4% of their total 143 MW of installed capacity. Result - 35 MW
of an unreliable, intermittent supply of electricity - less than half of the
90MW of reliable electricity needed to operate the liner QE2 on maximum power.
4)
In 1997, in a nationwide press release, the Wind Energy Industry proclaimed that
in 1996 a "record" 505 million units of electricity were produced from
over 550 wind turbines. To put this apparently impressive figure into
perspective it should be explained that this was 0.15% of the UK’s total
supply for 1996. Moreover, the average annual increase of supply in electricity
from 1992 - 1997 (and since the advent of wind ‘farms’) has been 2.4%. So,
just to meet that average annual increase in supply would have required a 16-
fold rise in wind power . No conventional power stations could close as a
constant, reliable equivalent of back-up supply must be available at all times.
5)
The Anglesey Aluminium Metal Ltd needs 220MW of constant, uninterrupted,
reliable power. The unreliable, average output of 22 wind ‘farms’ the size
of Carno, Wales (reputedly the largest one in Europe) would merely match the
needs of Aluminium Metal Ltd. Owing to the unpredictable, intermittent nature of
the wind it can never replace the reliable, constant 220 MW of conventional
power necessary for the functioning of the factory. Deprived of electricity for
over 6 hours the plant would be damaged to such an extent that it would be
uneconomic to re-open it.The factory supports 630 jobs and about twice that
number in associated jobs.
6)
"Connah’s Quay gas-fired power station which can power half the homes and
factories of Wales...........and Powergen’s other CCGT plant has reduced its
CO2 emissions by 11 million tonnes a year - a third of the UK’s target for CO2
reduction. The project created or secured 8,000 jobs and all of the 500
contractors and consultants were based in the UK." (DTI Press Release
4/7/97)
7)
The Baglan 500 MW gas-fired power station, the "most efficient and and
cleanest of its kind in the world", will cover about15 acres and produce
500 MW of reliable power. The Carno wind ‘farm’ - spread over about 1500
acres - produces an average tiny intermittent, unreliable trickle of 10 MW of
electricity.This is delivered to the National Grid by 24 kilometres of new
overhead line across previously uncluttered countryside. No wonder that Matt
Ridley says natural gas is "a less environmentally damaging way to generate
electricity than wind power." (Daily Telegraph,26/4/99)
8)
The following statistics are based on the "best performance" (1.8MW,
rated as "excellent" by the EU!) of the Cemaes wind ‘farm’ to date
- i.e 25% of capacity. On that basis the six 400 kW wind turbine extension
proposed will produce an intermittent, unreliable5,256,000 units p.a. Drax power
station can produce 4,000,000 units in one hour.Therefore Drax could produce the
annual output of the proposed Cemaes "B" extension in less than one
and a half hours.The total 25 - year life output of the Cemaes "B"
extension could reproduced by Drax in about one and a half days.
"The
Scientist [Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New
York] who alerted the world to the consequences of the greenhouse effect admits
today that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels was not the main cause of
rapid warming of the Earth in recent decades.Today, he argues that warming over
the past century was not mostly driven by carbon dioxide from burning fossil
fuels, but by other gases, such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons . . . . . .
" (DailyTelegraph, 17th August,2000)
Country
Guardian does not claim to be able to solve our energy problems but it would be
folly to sacrifice our heritage and few remaining precious landscapes for a
scientific theory which is still being debated by scientists worldwide. If
Britain’s landscape should sacrifice its wildness and tranquility, which is
appreciated by people here and across the world, it must only be in the event of
a national emergency. Even during the great oil crisis of the early 1970s our
upland landscapes were not sacrificed - wind power was considered but rejected
as having three outstanding defects - its environmental damage, unreliability
and minute output of electricity . Nothing has changed since then. The
tranquility of the countryside is an important component of sustainable
development. How does this square with the extensive scale of on-shore wind
energy proposed in the Government’s renewable energy programme? We have
inherited the timeless beauty of these landscapes from our forebears and we
recognise our duty to safeguard their peace and serenity for future generations.
If we proceed with the present policy for on-shore commercial wind ‘farms’
future generations will be amazed that we overwhelmed the landscape with such a
pointless and destructive response to the challenge of reducing pollution in our
atmosphere. Informed, as they will be, with the true facts, I doubt if they will
forgive us.
October
2000
Angela
Kelly, Chairman, Country Guardian.
Website:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/windfarms
Faculty of Building Journal, October 2000
(re-printed here by courtesy of the Faculty of Building, UK)
top^
Ruminations
on a Rural Idyll (ideal)
The
finches’ song
The
curlew’s cry
The
summer swallows chatter
How
dare you come to us and say
That
all these things don’t matter
The
wind in the leaves
The
bubbling stream
Sheep calls
in a distant field
With
all your trucks and lifting gear
The
threat to this is real
In
summer, autumn, winter or spring
It’s
a place of gentle beauty
In
our hearts we understand
That
it’s protection is our duty
The
silent hill across the vale
Reflecting
only calm
Could
echo back a constant noise
That
will only do us harm
The
people who wish to rape this land
Value
money more than peace
So
now we say we’ve had enough
The
development must cease
Your
can take your towers
Your
lorries and sails
And
stick them where the sun don’t shine
Because
here in Glyn we’ll all decide
To
say NO to the wind turbine
Ann
Johnson
top^
THE THREAT TO BIRDS
(What
the applicant and National Wind Power
would rather we didn’t know)
ANDREW
MADDEN, a field officer with the British Trust for Ornithology has been studying
birds and bird habitats, and keeping detailed logs of all the species he has
observed within a one-mile radius of Cefn Coed/Springhill for the past nine
years.
He
isn’t a local man. He travels down from the Wirral, and in the course of his
observations, he frequently spends eight or ten hours a day observing birds,
their movements and breeding habits, sometimes for up to two weeks at a time in
this area.
He
is, beyond any doubt, the expert on birds and bird life in the area around Cefn Coed.
Anyone attempting to make a credible survey of birdlife here, would have
to contact Andrew Madden. But ADAS,
who have prepared the survey for Roberts/NWP, never made any attempt to get in
touch with him, even though any one of several people living in the Valley could
have told them where he lives or how to get in contact with him.
Madden
describes the ‘survey’ on birdlife conducted by ADAS for the Roberts/NWP
turbines application as “not worth the paper it is written on”.
Why?
Because on their own admission, the ADAS survey was conducted over just a few
hours, on a cold and wet day in February this year, and as he says, “Anyone
who knows even a little about birds knows that upland species will desert their
normal habitat during periods of bad weather and move to lower lying areas in
order to find food.”
Thus
the birdlife survey conducted for Messrs Roberts cites just 11 species observed
in the vicinity of the proposed turbine site – buzzard, pheasant, woodpigeon,
raven, carrion crow, kestrel, meadow pipit, robin, blackbird, greenfinch and
yellowhammer.
But
Andrew Madden can take you up to the Cefn Coed/Springhill area on a fine spring
day in May, and in one morning show you between 65 and 70 different species of
birds. In the last nine years, he has actually observed 109 different species in
the Valley between Pontfadog and Llanarmon.
But
it isn’t just the number of species which the Roberts/NWP survey is deceiving
us about – it is the very much more critical issue of rare and endangered
types, which they presumably would rather we didn’t know.
The
European Union Birds Directive lists rare birds in categories, and those deemed
to be most in danger of extinction are placed in what is called ‘Annexe 1’.
They include such rarities as Merlin, Peregrine, and Hen Harrier, the latter
considered to be in such decline that anyone going near or even photographing
their nests faces very heavy fines in the courts.
Others
such as Lapwing are identified as endangered species in the Countryside &
Rights of Way Act (Section 74). In the case of Lapwing, the RSPB reports that
numbers have declined by an alarming 78 per cent since 1982.
Going
further down the scale, species such as Curlew and Barn Owl are rated in the
RSPB’s ‘amber’ category, but their numbers are declining so rapidly that
they are thought likely soon to be reclassified into the RSPB’s ‘red’
category – that is birds considered to be facing the most serious risk of
extinction.
How
is all this relevant?
Well,
all of these species have been observed by Andrew Madden in the area around Cefn
Coed in the last two years.
None
of them are even mentioned in the Roberts/NWP survey – and you can draw your
conclusions why that is.
Red
Kite too were observed only just down the road at Llanarmon as recently as May
this year, and similarly, Osprey were seen in the Valley near Pontfadog in
April. Like Merlin, Peregrine and Hen Harrier, they too rate as European
‘Annexe 1’
Andrew
Madden asks the question: “How do all these birds get into the Valley? Do they come down the road? No of course they don’t – they fly in
over the hills” – and there you can see the threat.
If
just one bird from one of these endangered species was struck by the propeller
blades of the turbines, it could bring about a percentage fall in the population
of that species in Wales. That’s not me saying that – that’s the RSPB,
with whom I have been in very close touch on this issue, and who are expected to
make separate representations to Wrexham County Borough Council.
The
other very unwelcome scenario, is the certainty that the very
presence of
turbines would drive these endangered birds from another crucial upland habitat
– and so diminish further numbers which are already at critical levels.
But
don’t take my word for it. Ask Andrew Madden and you can be sure he’ll tell
it like it is, because birds are what he knows best - unlike Roberts/NWP, whose
survey is a pale and hopelessly inadequate sham.
Another
grave omission in the Roberts/NWP report was discovered only this week by Amanda
Davies, the county ecologist for Wrexham Borough. The report completely failed
to identify that an area immediately west of the proposed Cefn Coed turbine
site, is a designated wildlife site, or, as it is termed, a ‘site of
substantive nature conservation interest’.
These
are just some of the reasons why a full Environmental Impact Assessment is
required. The Dulas ‘report’ is shoddy, inadequate and deceitful, and cannot
be trusted.
David
Wilcock
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