From: Bill Dyson, East End Cottages, Woldgate, Kirkham. Yorks Post.
BEN Stafford calls for “some light to be generated in the great turbine debate” (Yorkshire Post, March 17). It seems to me however that Mr Stafford does the opposite of that. The facts about wind turbines and wind farms have been known for a long time.
It is an absolute fact, easily verifiable by every one of us, that sometimes there is no wind at all, notably in the coldest parts of winter and when it does blow it doesn’t blow at constant speed, it blows in gusts.
Because wind is unreliable and greatly varies, wind farms have to be slowed or backed up by conventional generators which are constantly running. The money to build these generators has already been allocated by the Government. In relation to electricity generation therefore, wind farms are redundant. They may as well not have been built in the first place.
Conventional generators can’t be turned on and off in time with the gusts of wind – their output can only be changed gradually and because they emit more carbon dioxide when they are changing output than when they are running at constant speed, wind turbines do not save on greenhouse gases.In short, wind farms are useless. They are redundant in relation to electricity generation and they do not save on carbon emissions. They are therefore totally irrelevant in any discussion about climate change.
