Yes mj. Not the most reputable source - agreed. The post was to make the point that perhaps the UK are putting all of their eggs in one basket. And perhaps cornering themselves in the process.
Discussed more here - The Telegraph
"Does money grow in wind farms?"
Wind turbines are a poor way to harness energy - but a very good way to generate public subsidies, says Andrew Gilligan.
Some excerpts..
Why, then, are we so "fixated" with wind? The number of onshore wind turbines is likely to treble in the next few years. A total of 7,000 turbines, on and off-shore, are either under construction, approved for building or seeking planning permission.
Part of the answer may be that wind turbines are visible, tangible symbols of political commitment and moral righteousness. Mr Clegg's party wants 15,000 of them, and the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, also a Lib Dem, has described them as "beautiful". The Lib Dems are also fiercely against nuclear, though their Tory partners are not.
The rest of the answer appears to be subsidy. The Government pays an indirect subsidy, a renewable obligation, or RO and putting up a wind turbine is the cheapest way to collect it. In contrast to better renewable technologies, a turbine is inexpensive to build, perhaps around #2 million, and it lasts at least 20 years.
The total RO paid to the wind industry last year was #400 million. So each of Britain's wind turbines earned, on average, #138,000 in subsidy last year - more than Mrs Cleggs husband makes. Add in the profits from selling the electricity they generate and after construction costs are cleared, you will be making nearly #300,000 per year per turbine, half of it courtesy of the Government.
It does make for some slightly perverse outcomes. Research and development on new renewable technologies - which might be able to reduce CO2 without needing to build large towers in the countryside - get far less subsidy than wind farms."
Campbell Dunford, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), says that Germany - which has the largest number of wind turbines in Europe - "is building five new coal power stations, which it does not otherwise need, purely to provide covering power for the fluctuations from their wind farms. I am not sure [wind] has been a great success for them." Mr Dunford claims that Germany's CO2 emissions have actually risen since it increased its use of wind power. Though the wind itself might, in RUK's words, be "free", the cost of backup capacity is likely to be astronomical.
"Even if, as seems likely, wind can remove some CO2 from the generation of electricity, the danger, particularly in a cash-strapped age, is that it offers less CO2 reduction for the buck than other means. The Government's idea that it can provide approaching a third of our power within 10 years (it currently provides 2.3 per cent) is dismissed by most experts as unrealistic."
John Constable, director of policy at the REF, says: "There is a real risk that governments will succumb to panic and introduce very strong mandates to reach these targets. That would be disastrous, because it will result, as it is already resulting, in the adoption of sub-optimal technology."
Constable says that far better renewables than wind are available already. Electricity generation accounts for less than half of UK energy consumption - transport and heating make up the rest. "Everybody is fixated with generating electricity, and the low-hanging fruit is being missed," he says.
Full article.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/7823681/Does-money-grow-in-wind-farms.html
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