The FCC Brogborough wind farm application is expected soon and the Stewartby one is being considered. See the following from the Daily Telegraph which says the wind farm programme is unabated. Earlier this week the Parish Council voted to oppose the Stewartby one one the grounds of "cumulative visual impact" and proximity to the proposed Kimberley STEM college (Wootton Plus).
Earlier this year I proposed that the PC oppose the FCC application unless a minimum distance of 2 Km was maintained between the turbines and the nearest residential property while health issues were investigated. But I am not convinced that visual impact is an objective enough basis for opposition.
New Green tax threat in energy bills 'deal'
Ed Davey, the Environment Secretary, says there will be no cap on wind farms, as he insists that Green levies must stay and might have to be paid through taxes
The country needed more wind turbines to play a “critical” role in supplying electricity to the National Grid in the decades ahead, Mr Davey said.
New taxes to pay for environmental schemes are being considered as part of a deal to cut household energy bills, it can be disclosed.
The taxpayer would foot the bill for two of the “green” schemes, all of which are currently paid for through a levy on gas and electricity bills.
The major energy suppliers have repeatedly told ministers the levies are pushing up household bills — for which they and the Government have been severely criticised.
Senior Tories have held talks with the companies and believe they have secured agreement that if the largest levy, the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO), is removed, immediate cuts in prices of up to seven per cent would be announced.
A deal could be struck in time to be announced as early as next month, allowing an average saving of as much as £75 a household.
But Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary, said the green schemes had to stay — and signalled that they could be paid for through tax.
He told The Telegraph that he was happy to have a “debate” about how green energy policies were funded. He said: “We can maybe find there are other ways of paying for them. There may be ways and means.”
The move by the Lib Dems means that George Osborne will either have to raise taxes or find money to pay for the scheme, expected to cost £1.3 billion next year, from already under-pressure public funds through more cuts or borrowing.
In a significant intervention in the heated debate, Mr Davey also:
• Vetoed the Prime Minister’s own intention to review every green subsidy, saying that support for wind farms and other “renewable” energy systems would not be reconsidered;
• Refused to back down on support for wind farms, insisting that more onshore turbines would be “critical” for energy supplies;
• Said the wind farms, which have attracted huge opposition where they have been built or proposed, did not affect house prices;
• Attacked Right-wing Tories for “undermining consensus” on the environment;
• Said there has been “massive interest” in new licences for fracking and a review to be published on Monday will outline a revival in the North Sea oil industry.
For full article see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10438528/New-Green-tax-threat-in-energy-bills-deal.html
Earlier this year I proposed that the PC oppose the FCC application unless a minimum distance of 2 Km was maintained between the turbines and the nearest residential property while health issues were investigated. But I am not convinced that visual impact is an objective enough basis for opposition.
New Green tax threat in energy bills 'deal'
Ed Davey, the Environment Secretary, says there will be no cap on wind farms, as he insists that Green levies must stay and might have to be paid through taxes
The country needed more wind turbines to play a “critical” role in supplying electricity to the National Grid in the decades ahead, Mr Davey said.
New taxes to pay for environmental schemes are being considered as part of a deal to cut household energy bills, it can be disclosed.
The taxpayer would foot the bill for two of the “green” schemes, all of which are currently paid for through a levy on gas and electricity bills.
The major energy suppliers have repeatedly told ministers the levies are pushing up household bills — for which they and the Government have been severely criticised.
Senior Tories have held talks with the companies and believe they have secured agreement that if the largest levy, the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO), is removed, immediate cuts in prices of up to seven per cent would be announced.
A deal could be struck in time to be announced as early as next month, allowing an average saving of as much as £75 a household.
But Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary, said the green schemes had to stay — and signalled that they could be paid for through tax.
He told The Telegraph that he was happy to have a “debate” about how green energy policies were funded. He said: “We can maybe find there are other ways of paying for them. There may be ways and means.”
The move by the Lib Dems means that George Osborne will either have to raise taxes or find money to pay for the scheme, expected to cost £1.3 billion next year, from already under-pressure public funds through more cuts or borrowing.
In a significant intervention in the heated debate, Mr Davey also:
• Vetoed the Prime Minister’s own intention to review every green subsidy, saying that support for wind farms and other “renewable” energy systems would not be reconsidered;
• Refused to back down on support for wind farms, insisting that more onshore turbines would be “critical” for energy supplies;
• Said the wind farms, which have attracted huge opposition where they have been built or proposed, did not affect house prices;
• Attacked Right-wing Tories for “undermining consensus” on the environment;
• Said there has been “massive interest” in new licences for fracking and a review to be published on Monday will outline a revival in the North Sea oil industry.
For full article see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10438528/New-Green-tax-threat-in-energy-bills-deal.html
1 comment:
Let's pick the Stewartby application apart. Firstly, FCC claim that their single turbine will provide power for 285 homes per annum and they assume 27% of possible capacity when viewed as yearly output. This is due to the fact that a lot of the time the wind does not blow at all, or is at speeds too high or too low to operate the turbine continuously.
The latest data from the Renewable Energy Foundation (2012) shows that on average, UK Wind Farms produce around 24% capacity in their first year of operation. This falls by about 1% per annum until at year 17, they have fallen to about 9%, or the equivalent of only 94 homes. There is an unremarkable side street in Bedford called Chantry Avenue and you might have a job to find it amongst the hundreds, possibly thousands of other streets in Bedford. It is a road about 500m long has about one hundred homes in it and that's what this turbine would supply with electricity after two thirds of its life.
FCC compare the view of the turbine with the benign brick chimneys at Stewartby. Brick chimneys don't move. All animals, humans included, are programmed to focus on movement because it's either either food or a predator.
The photo montage pictures were taken with a Canon digital camera and 50mm lens. In Scotland where they are fed up with falsely represented photo montages, they specify an 80mm when used with a Canon camera, which then gives the same view as a human eye. It is considered that 50mm lens makes the turbines look much further away.
Existing background sound levels have been taken and graphs are shown. There is no evidence that they are true representations of the original sound data becasue that data has not been submitted so we cannot check it. FCC have used a 'candidate' turbine to demonstrate that the liberal sound guidelines won't be infringed and the noise data from that turbine is said to be guaranteed by the manufacture. However the data that has been offered in the application is clearly marked as NOT guaranteed. With the potential of an inaccurate baseline noise level and guaranteed/not guaranteed noise emissions from a candidate turbine that may or may not be used, the noise section of the application is a master class of smoke and mirrors.
Are turbines green? Well, the farmers in China who have lost their land because of the giant open cast mining that handles the ore for producing neodymium magnets for the turbine magnets wouldn’t agree with you. The main processing plant has a six mile diameter lake full of heavy metals and the dense CO2 rich smoke from the chimneys that fill the horizon make a nonsense of green energy.
So if you still support wind energy then perhaps you must enjoy paying the energy companies about £40 per megawatt hour above the wholesale price of electricity. That's about double the going rate.
So to sum up they are intermittent, unreliable, inefficient and don't save CO2. Plus they cost us a fortune in subsidies. Why do people like them again?
Peter Gardner
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