As reserves decline over the next 20 years the problem of intimidation will worsten, this presents the biggest argument for nuclear energy, the only source that will meet the UK demands inside 20 years.

“In the end, won’t this be the most compelling argument to win round the climate change sceptics to green energy?”

Do you >reallysignificant< means of improving Britain’s energy security.

Dwindling reserves - does this take into account the yet to be exploited vast oil fields under the seas off the coast of the USA and under Alaska, not to say the huge amounts elsewhere not currently economically viable or being fully exploited, such as Iran?

Should windmills become our primary source of energy, of course you are absolutely sure there will be no disputes over the land available upon which they can be built where the wind blows.

The lack of broad understanding and sheer ignorance of too many folk of human behaviour, inter-reaction and the realities of the World is breathtaking - I blame the schools.

“In the end, won’t this be the most compelling argument to win round the climate change sceptics to green energy?”

Do you really mean to say that energy security should be used as a stalking horse to dupe skeptics into accepting your climate ’saving’ energy policies, because if that’s what you want to say then just say it without beating around the bush.

This skeptic of the IPCC ‘consensus’ certainly is concerned with energy security in the UK, but you would have to persuade me that windmills offer a good value way of achieving this………………..

The level of hysteria and paranoia over alleged manmade global warming is unbelievable. An armada of 1900 wind powered ships squirting water into the atmosphere to create cloud formations is just the most recent in a line of whacky ideas to prevent global catastrophe.
Having built this fleet at enormous cost, scientists tell us: well, if we’ve got it wrong and the Law of Unintended Consequences applies, we can always switch them off. This is an admission that they really don’t know what they’re doing, and they can’t prove that the effect of this tampering would be reversible.
Realistically, the new generation of nuclear stations in the UK won’t be operational until 2025. The government plans to build at least another 7000 wind turbines, possibly as many as 20000. We don’t make any of this kit, so it’s good news for overseas exporters but bad news for our trade deficit (£8bn) in a time of recession.
So the government of whatever complexion is prepared to sacrifice the UK’s economy on the altar of manmade global warming.
The fact is the UK has at least 100 years of coal reserves, so why aren’t we using it, bearing in mind that China’s three biggest electricity firms produce more CO2 than the whole of the UK.
If we want energy independence, and to prevent the lights going out before nuclear comes on-line, we must build more coal fired power stations. It should also be remembered that synthetic fuel can be made from coal as South Africa had to do during the blockade. And before natural gas, the UK used to burn coal gas.
It is vital that Britain takes a dispassionate look at energy provision, forgetting the “green revolution” tripe. We need a serious study of supply and demand with costings and timescales. But we know it won’t happen: our politicians want to “walk tall” in world politics. They want to “sit at the top table” proclaiming that Britain is a global leader in emissions reduction (and stuff the British public).

Dear Rowena,

You say a “few turbines littering the Scottish Highlands” but do you know how many it will entail to provide 15% of the peak UK demand ? No ? then let me illustrate.

It is a Government objective for at least 15% of the UK peak energy to be supplied by wind.

A large wind turbine (one mounted on a 300ft (95m) high steel tower) is rated at 3MW. This does not mean it produces 3MW of power since it only generates this rated power when the wind blows constantly at 12m/s.

What a 3MW rated windmill ACTUALLY produces given that the wind often doesn’t blow (so no power) or blows too fast (no power because the windmill has to shut down otherwise its blades blow off) is about 20% of its rated power or 600KW - thats enough for 600 1kw electric fires. This 600KW is at a good site ie 5 miles out at sea.

So if all these huge windmills were out at sea we would need about 15,000 of them to generate 9GW (about 15% of UK peak demand). If they were all on land - say in the Scottish Highlands, the wind regime is far worse than out at sea and you would probably then need about 30,000.

Thats the “few turbines littering the Scottish Highlands” - 30,000 300ft high monsters. Of course, that will never happen because energy is a devolved matter for the Scottish Parliament and I cannot see them turning the Highlands into a modern “green” industrial wasteland.

Which begs the question, if not the Scottish highlands then where else - in England’s green and pleasant land do you see 30,000 wind turbines despoiling the landscape ? Answers on the back of a postage stamp - along the lines of “No effing way”

I had this discussion last night with a confirmed AGW supporter, who owns a 3.2l BMW and a 4.5l 4*4! They are not a scientist, but are extremely successful in business.

I am a skeptic and own no car, use trains a lot and can understand most science but am too nice to be ruthless enough for business success. If, like a footballer I had an agent, I might be in the £500k a year earning bracket for strategic analysis to CEOs….

Seems to me that the warmers need to get their lifestyles consistent with their warming?

While Ms. Mason wrote a good article, she needs to study her history and science a bit more. In 1605, there was a brief war against windmills, but I believe Don Quixote lost the war.

Also the earth is continually making new oil.

Well, I’ve seen some specious arguments in my time, but really, Rowena!

“A few turbines…” maths isn’t your strong subject, is it?

How about ‘hot spinning backup’, Rowena? Ever heard of it?

Further, I very much doubt that you will find so much as a single “climate change sceptic”, no-one I have ever met has any doubt that the climate has changed, is changing at this very moment, and will continue to change for the next five billion years until the Sun turns to a red giant. I, for example, live in an area whose scenery was created by the last Ice Age, U-shaped and hanging valleys, drumlins and erratics abound, so what happened to all those glaciers, Rowena? No SUVs about then.

What many of are sceptical about is whether we, as a species, actually have anything to do with it, and as a secondary consideration whether a few degrees more temperature might not be a good thing anyway.

And don’t get the idea, Rowena, that I favour the utter destruction of the Planet’s resources, I don’t.

But I DO consider the current plan to cover the countryside with totally useless 100-metre-high monstrosities, (do have any idea how much CO2 is actually created by the construction and installation of one of these horrors, Rowena? I suspect not. Or how much power will be lost conveying it from the Highlands of Scotland down to the South of England? Or how many pylons that will require?) to counter a threat whose existence has not been clearly demonstrated, and that the last decade’s climate records are perilously close to demonstrating to have been erroneous at best, and quite probably the biggest hoax foisted upon mankind since Communism (which some consider it is in fact closely related to).

Vandalism of the highest order, basically. How is it that you townie “Greens” have such a visceral hatred of the countryside and its inhabitants, from the human beings to the birds that will get minced by the blades and the flora and fauna that will be destroyed by the construction? You do realise that you are approving concreting over a far greater area of virgin countryside than the motorway networks that you so vehemetly opposed, do you not, Rowena?

As for your AGW-supporting acquaintance with his BMWs Rhys, that’s nothing.

The leader of the whole movement Al Gore (who as we all know invented the Internet) travels round in a Gulfstream executive jet. Now THAT’s a lifestyle,if you like!

The energy required to build these wind plants (concrete especially) means a very long pay back time. The main source of power at the moment is thousands of conventional plants built before the environment became the hot topic it is today.
After looking at theenvironmentalist.com I realize how many forms of power generation there are and agree with its comments about coordinating the alternatives on offer. There seems to me a dangerous trend for ministers who have no engineering background taking decisions (probably with “incentives”) on our future. Leave it to the experts and preferably have a mix and match of generation methods.
McClown and his sporran of incompetants shouldnt be allowed within a million miles of these decisions.

If by climate change sceptics, you really mean AGW atheists, then I’m one of those. Mainly because the science I’ve read has convinced me that the “science” provided by the AGW alarmists doesn’t hold water, and is a flimsy sham of a dogma with which to try and change the world.

Oil, coal and gas are finite, so there’s no point in hoarding them, they have to be used - and there’s plenty of each left to be discovered for the foreseeable future.

Sticking windmills up on every available square inch of land is going to achieve nothing. Even the Greenies would baulk if one got erected in their respective gardens of Eden amongst their tree houses and rubbish - but I expect they’d still want the benefit.

For the life of me, I can’t understand the muddle-headed thinking behind these stupid eco-policies, other than governmental desire to control, tax and frighten its citizens.

But all of that won’t stop the economy going down the pan, and the dark ages will soon be upon us all. Stock up with candles and paraffin, the governments of the world are about to shaft mankind in the name of changing the climate (which, of course, they never will).

hear hear and three cheers for ‘dwightvandryer’
Couldn’t have said it better.
Thanks

France has done very well with Nuclear energy. it is not too expensive either and I very much doubt whether the french would permit their countryside to be plastered with windmills.
The old Dutch windmills are rather nice looking and bring us back to a romantic? age of candlit homes and pumped up water. But, would it do today?
The GLOBAL WARMING THEORY IS SUCH A SCAM–WONDER HOW INTELLIGENT???? PEOPLE CAN EVEN BELIEVE IT.
Climate change is natural and one doesn’t fool with Mother Nature—or GOD!

Rowena Mason, another journalist that needs to read “The Ultimate Resource 2″ by Julian Simon. The whole article is based on a false premise, so obviously it reaches false conclusions. The Telegraph needs to get more people who know about Economics (not the same as Finance!).

We had an energy policy one based on strategic security before Attila the Hen decided that the market knew best and destroyed our coal industry and 1,000s of lives. I get angry listening to all this blather from people who don’t know there anal orifice from there elbow. My old mine had 40 years of coal left but is it going to be reopened again, no because the energy costs and money needed go open it up will not be repaid by the coal down there. this is what has happened to to our coal resources they have been neutralised. They cost too much of cause, blinded by the red ink of the NCBs deficit the dumb bean counters in the tresury hadn’t got the gumption to try and work out how much it would save the country in not having to import all that coal that has been sealed in. for the last 30 years. Windpower is of cause ugly and most people quiet rightly do not want it in there back yard. Where I live on the boarder of Holland and Germany I can see at least 50 large windmill turning slowly over the German landscape. The have been installed over the last 10 years lots of them owned by the local villagers I agree they are not particularly beautiful but I always point out that you are not going to glow in the dark if one falls as happened in Chernobile and every time they turn they save the German state money, as the don’t have to import and pay for the equivalent energy from abroad.
Denmark is perhaps a better example the Danish Government have for the last 30 years have been following a course of strategic independence and have been subsiding Wind energy. Denmark now produces 20% of its electricy from Wind. I can hear you lot saying we must not subsidise it distorts the market. Apart from saving Denmark in not importing fuel, it has allowed the Danes to build up a wind industry that employs at least 30,000 in Green tech jobs which would be in the region of 360,000 if Britain had an industry of equivalent size. Imagine 360,000 well paid people working in an export industry paying taxes and bringing money into the country because now it mainly exports.And unlike Britain they wont be left in the dark when the oil and the gas runs out. Remember also that when the oil and the gas run out you wont even have enough energy to build the windmill so you will stay in the dark.

“a few turbines littering the Scottish highlands”
You clearly haven’t visited the Scottish countryside recently. Everywhere you go beautiful scenery is being destroyed by this obsession with creating windfarms. And there are more and more on the way. I can only imagine that parts of rural England and Wales have the same issue.
Any other industrial use on top of hillside would be an outrage, but building huge concrete slabs and putting 150 ft high white poles on top seems to somehow be acceptable.
I strongly believe that we will come to regret all these windfarms much like we came to regret 1960s tower blocks. One day we will all wake up and realise we have destroyed our beautiful landscapes with these eyesores.

PaulW, sorry to get geeky - but you started it!

You are quite right that it would require a huge number of windmills to deliver the Government’s renewables target from wind power, but you are not quite right in the way you get there.

Like many journalists, you’re confusing energy (which is measured in MWh, megawatt hours) with power (measured in MW, megawatts), which is like confusing distance (miles) with speed (miles per hour).

So when you say (correctly) that a 3MW windmill delivers about 20% of its rated capacity, that does not mean it delivers 0.6MW. Sometimes it delivers 3MW, sometimes it delivers nothing, and at any one time it might be delivering anything in between.

The 20% refers to energy output over an extended period, not the instantaneous power output - so, in 1000 hours, a 3MW windmill will deliver about 600MWh (3MW * 1000 hours * 20%), whereas if it were running at 100%, it would deliver 3000MWh (3MW * 1000 hours). (Sizewell B has been doing that pretty consistently for several years now.)

The Government’s target is not a percentage of peak demand. Peak demand occurs instantaneously, usually around mid-January, and is as you clearly know around 60GW. Now instantaneous output from the wind fleet as a whole can vary, over the fleet as a whole, between over 80% and under 10%, so if the target were a percentage of peak demand it might be the case that you’d hit it very easily one year and miss it hopelessly the next. Even though demand was the same and the number of windmills the same in each case - the only difference being, that wind conditions at the time of peak demand were different.

But the Government’s target is actually a percentage of annual demand, which is about 300TWh. This is the point at which my argument rejoins yours - as you say, you’d need a huge number of windmills to be certain of delivering 15% of that, 45 TWh. I make it about 20,000 3MW plants; by way of comparison about ten 1.5GW (normal size) nuclear power stations would probably produce the same.

With that much wind capacity you’d quite often have to switch some of them off to avoid overloading the system when wind conditions are good and demand low, but you’d still also need back-up capacity to meet demand at times when wind conditions are bad and demand high.

PaulW The Government’s policy is not to provide 15% of peak energy, it’s to meet 15% of the UK’s total demand by renewables (of all kinds). Your argument loses a lot of its drama if you use the facts.
And you might want to check out the power curves for the average turbine. They don’t only produce peak output at 12m/s.
And its worth checking out your figures for capacity factors. Again these are all available online. There are lots of sites in the UK with Capacity Factors in teh mid twenties. There are many with capacity factors in the mid thirties. There is one (albeit in Shetland) with a capacity factor of over fifty.
Make sure you’re using facts before you start a rant.
I’m not saying windfarms are the answer - they aren’t, but it’s lazy of people to accept hearsay rather than find out the facts.

Garry248, not sure if you are aware, but all windfarm developers must lodge a decomissioning bond with the council when they build a windfarm. This is reviewed every five years to make sure there is enough money in the pot to remove the windfarm. You can check this by looking at the planning conditions for any consented windfarm.
If, miraculously, we solve our energy problems and don’t need any windfarms, then they could all be decomissioned and removed at no cost to the taxpayer.