News and stories on the the latest developments

25 Jan The Telegraph,"Wind farm subsidies top £1 billion a year"

The Ofgem report will show that over the past three years the subsidies have added a total of £32.50 to the average household's electricity bills 

The hidden levy is part of a Government scheme to force energy companies to fund green energy. The companies bear the cost but pass it on to consumers in the form of higher bills. The amount raised has climbed steeply since the introduction of the levy in 2002.

Next month's annual report from Ofgem, the energy regulator, will show that it has risen above £1 billion for the first time, according to analysts at the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), a green energy think-tank. It means that renewable energy added an an estimated £13.50 to the average household electricity bill last year. An additional burden fell on industrial users of electricity, who in turn passed on costs to their customers.

Critics claimed that the subsidy scheme unfairly penalised consumers and was being used to fund "unrealistic" plans to increase the use of wind power. Countryside campaigners have expressed concerns at the number of wind farms being built around the country, as the Government tries to meet its target that 30 per cent of the UK's energy should be generated from renewable sources by 2020.

The Ofgem report will show that over the past three years the subsidies have added a total of £32.50 to the average household's electricity bills. The annual cost has steadily risen from £7 in 2007 to £13.50 in 2009. The proceeds of the levy, known as the Renewables Obligation (RO), are divided between the main renewable energy sources, with wind receiving 40 per cent, landfill gas 25 per cent, biomass 20 per cent, hydroelectric 12 per cent and sewage gas 3 per cent.

Dr John Constable, director of policy and research at the REF, said: "The fundamental problem with the RO is that the cost to the consumer is extremely high. "Since the cost of the scheme is passed onto businesses as well as households, there will also be a significant impact on the economy. "The Government's plans for wind are wildly unrealistic. Wind power is going to be very expensive, very difficult and ultimately very costly."

The cost to consumers of the RO scheme has risen from £278 million in 2002/3 to £1.04 billion last year, the Ofgem report is expected to say - a total of £4.4 billion over seven years. The scheme works by requiring energy suppliers to obtain a set percentage of the electricity they provide to consumers from renewable sources. In 2008/9 this figure was 9.1 per cent, compared to 7.9 per cent in 2007/8. For each megawatt hour of renewable energy bought by a supplier from a generator, suppliers must also buy a certificate as proof. If suppliers fail to meet their obligation by presenting enough certificates, they must pay a fine known as a "buy-out". The cost to energy suppliers is passed on to consumers through their bills.

Ofgem predicts that the total cost of the RO to consumers between 2002 and 2027, when the scheme is set to end, will amount to £32 billion. By 2020 it is estimated that the annual cost will be running at over £5 billion.

Prof Ian Fells, emeritus professor of energy conversion at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, said money that was being invested into wind farms through the RO scheme needed to be diverted elsewhere. He said: "Consumers simply don't realise the cost to them of supporting the renewable energy industry. Not only is there a cost to consumers but there is a cost to businesses as well. "So people will not only see the huge cost of the RO scheme in their household bills but also on the High Street, as they see shops put up prices to meet the rising cost of electricity.

"Subsidising wind farms is far too expensive, and the money could be better spent by investing in other forms of power."

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "To ensure we meet our climate change goals we need a massive increase in low carbon energy and that includes renewables. "The RO is helping that expansion happen with the amount of electricity generated from renewables trebling since 2002. "We also need to make sure we have continued secure energy supplies in the future and renewables are part of that too. There's no high-carbon low-price alternative – we must move to low-carbon sources."

There are currently 270 wind farms with 2,775 turbines in operation, with plans for a further 10,000 on and around Britain's shores.

It has raised concerns in communities that hundreds of acres of rural landscapes will have wind farms built on them. Last week The Sunday Telegraphrevealed how 14 of the UK's officially-designated beauty spots could soon be blighted by turbines, which can reach more than 400ft in height.

23 Jan, The Journal, "Protesters say council did not do enough"

15 January, The Northern Echo, "An ill wind?

Wind farms are springing up everywhere, but are they bad for your health? Health Editor Barry Nelson, who lives near a proposed wind farm site, weighs up the arguments. LOVE them or loath them, we could be seeing a lot more giant wind turbines in the North-East as the UK tries to reduce its reliability on fossil fuels. But are we storing up health problems for the future?

Campaigners against wind farms claim the vibrations produced by wind turbines can harm health, but the industry says there is no proof of this. So far, 25 wind farms have been built or approved in the North-East and North Yorkshire, with at least another 13 proposed. The Government is keen to see more wind farms as a way of meeting the UK’s commitment to reducing our carbon emissions and tackling climate change. And the wind farm industry has responded by setting 219 wind farms across Britain, so far.G enerating “clean” electricity, wind farms are already making a small, but significant, contribution to meeting UK energy needs.

But a growing groundswell of local opposition could stop this apparently relentless expansion in its tracks, and the North-East is becoming one of the key battlegrounds in this increasingly bitter struggle.

A conference in Darlington this year will act as a platform for campaigners who are determined to curb the expansion of wind farms. The event is organised by Trish Pemberton, chairwoman of the Bolam Area Action Group, which opposes plans for a seven-turbine wind farm near the small County Durham village.Mrs Pemberton is concerned that wind farms are “coming closer and closer to people’s homes and getting taller and taller”.

Apart from criticisms that wind farms are a blot on the landscape and are not an efficient alternative to burning fossil fuels, campaigners are increasingly emphasising concerns that these giant windmills, which can be the same height as a 40-storey office block, could constitute a health hazard.

They say there is evidence that noise, low-frequency vibrations and flickering shadows created by giant wind turbines can cause serious health problems for those living nearby. The wind farm industry dismisses these claims as “bad science”, like the MMR vaccine scare, and insists there is no hard evidence that wind turbines can have an adverse affect on health. But campaigners are convinced of their case and are now pushing for the Government to introduce a law that will mean new wind turbines must be at least 2km away from homes.

But what evidence do campaigners have for their claims? A recent report by Dr Chris Hanning, an expert in sleep medicine and sleep physiology, is a good place to start.

Dr Hanning, who founded one of the largest NHS hospital services of its kind in the UK, in Leicester, carried out a critical review of more than 40 international reports into the impact of wind farm noise. Published last summer on behalf of the Stop Swinford Wind Farm Action Group, in Leicestershire, his report concluded: “In my expert opinion, from my knowledge of sleep physiology and a review of the available research, I have no doubt that wind turbine noise emissions cause sleep disturbance and ill-health.”

Dr Hanning adds: “There can be no doubt that groups of industrial wind turbines generate sufficient noise to disturb the sleep and impair the health of those living nearby.” In fact, he noted that families whose homes were about 900m from wind turbines (just over half a mile) said that the noise, sleep disturbance and ill-health eventually drove them from their homes.

The retired consultant adds that inadequate sleep has been associated not just with fatigue, sleepiness and an impairment of thought processes, but also with an increased risk of obesity, impaired glucose tolerance (risk of diabetes), high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer and depression. He pointed to a survey of 42 people living near wind turbines carried out in 2007 by a GP, Dr Amanda Harry. The study showed that 81 per cent of respondents felt that their health had been affected, 76 per cent of them had seen a doctor as a result and 73 per cent felt their quality of life had suffered. Dr Hanning said this indicated “strongly” that some people are “severely affected by wind turbines at distances thought by the industry to be safe”.

He is also impressed by a report by Dr Nina Pierpont, an American paediatrician who studied ten families who fled their homes because of wind turbine noise. Dr Pierpont found that the symptoms described by the respondents stopped once they had moved away from the turbine. Dr Pierpont found that all the adult subjects reported “feeling jittery inside” or “internal quivering” often accompanied by anxiety, fearfulness, sleep disturbance and irritability. The children also suffered changes in sleep pattern and diminished academic performance. For Dr Hanning, her report “convincingly shows that wind turbine noise does cause the symptoms of wind turbine syndrome, including sleep disturbance”. Dr Pierpont concludes by calling for further research – and a minimum distance of 2km between homes and wind turbines.

ANOTHER group of doctors in the US – from Maine – also highlighted the problem of “shadow flicker” from wind turbines contributing to serious health problems, including sleep disturbance, headaches, dizziness, weight changes, possible increases in blood pressure and increased prescription medicine use.

But Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association, strongly disputes these claims. In a statement originally published by The Independent newspaper, Ms McCaffery said: “Wind turbines are safe. That is the conclusion of every reputable scientific study conducted into the impact of wind turbines on human health, based on a range of international research.” She points to a 2004 World Health Organisation report which showed that wind power was one of the most benign ways of generating electricity in terms of direct and indirect health effects. An independent study on wind farms and noise in 2007 found only four complaints from about 2,000 turbines in the UK. Ms McCaffery said Dr Pierpont’s findings had not been through any process of independent review by recognised experts in the field, and that until her work is published in a reputable medical journal, “it will be hard to view her allegations as anything other than yet another scare story peddled by the opponents of wind power”. She insists that the energy debate “must be based on facts, not myths”. One thing is certain, we have not heard the last of this great debate.

Jan 14, Berwick Today "Enough is enough, No more wind turbines in the Lammermuir Hills"

The prospect of over 400 wind turbines in the Lammermuirs has prompted local people to say enough is enough.

A recent ballot by Cranshaws, Ellemford and Longformacus Community Council revealed that 70 per cent of local residents who responded want no further wind farm developments in the Lammermuirs, and news that Scottish Borders Council’s planning officers are recommending that the council put forward no objections to a 30 turbine extension to the Wester Dod/Aikengall wind farm has been greeted with dismay.

The gist of the planning officers’ report to the planning committee is that the wind farms already erected or consented have changed the landscape in the Lammermuirs and the need for renewable energy outweighs the preservation of the visual aspect of the region.

“The locality is already characterised by wind farms and turbines, and the increase in impact would be, on balance, within tolerable levels,” reads the report to councillors.

The community council has also been doing battle over the proposed 48 turbine wind farm planned for Fallago Rig and succeeded in persuading the Scottish Government to re-open the public inquiry into that planning application to hear all new evidence that has arisen since the inquiry was heard two years ago.

Now they are determined to fight the council’s planning officers and try and persuade councillors to object to the Wester Dod extension, and so force another public inquiry.

The height (145m) of the proposed turbines at Wester Dod would make them the largest onshore turbines in Scotland, double the scale of the first turbines at Soutra.

Planning consent is needed from the Scottish Government rather than the local councils (the turbines are in both Scottish Borders Council and East Lothian areas) but the councils’ views are sought and if they oppose the application then a public inquiry would be required.

Postponement of SBC’s planning committee on Monday this week has given campaigners more time to put together their case and the chairman of the planning committee has agreed to the community council’s request for a site visit before the committee make a decision. A 28 day extension to the consultation period has also been agreed by the Scottish Government.

East Lothian Council discussed the Wester Dod application on Tuesday, January 12, and decided not to oppose the application, mainly because it was an extension of an existing wind farm which meant access roads and infrastructure was already in place and there would be less disruption.

One councillor wanted a site visit and another sympathised with residents of Oldhamstocks who fear it will be an intrusion, but the overall view was that the decision had been taken that renewable energy was needed and the application would help meet that need.

Scottish Natural Heritage describe the Wester Dod application as “the wrong proposal on the wrong site”, and despite recommending no objections to the plans SBC planners admit that: “The potential of this development to impact on the landscape of the Lammermuir Hills is of the greatest significance.”

However the report goes on to say: “There is an acceptance that previous development at Aikengall I and Crystal Rig has already changed the local landscape significantly.

“Cumulative visual impact would occur if the development applied for is now implemented and the ability of the landscape to accommodate this impact would be tested.

“However, balancing the additional visual impact of this development against the requirement to give positive consideration to renewable energy development would lead to a conclusion that the development would accord with both national and local policy in this area.

“The erection of 30 wind turbines and associated equipment would cause an acceptable level of impact on the landscape character of the surrounding area.”

Chairman of Cranshaws, Ellemford and Longformacus Community Council, David Lochhead said: “The report reads like the dereliction of duty that it is. It effectively abdicates responsibility for planning at local level and simply defers to central government dictat.

“There is simply no consistency to the council’s position. The adjacent windfarm at Aikengall was objected to, as was Fallago Rig, yet the council seem to have abandoned any effort to protect this Area of Great Landscape Value on the premis that the area is already spoiled, so a bit more damage is neither here nor there!

“On this basis there will be no stopping the tidal wave of planning applications already in the system for the Lammermuir Hills, over 400 turbines at the last count. The council will be responsible for the ruination of one of the finest landscapes and environmental assets in the Scottish Borders.

“The Cranshaws, Ellemford and Longformacus Community cannot understand why such a great environmental loss to both people and wildlife should be suffered to provide insignificant savings in green house gas emissions.”

Members of the community council say that there has already been a devastating impact on the local wildlife where the wind turbines are operating at Crystal Rig and Aitkengall.

“The area of 20 sq kms has been virtually sterilised by turbine development,” added Mr Lochhead.

“The Wester Dod development will add a further 9sq kms of devastation in an area that is known habitat to a number of highly protected bird species

“The RSPB has recently revealed research that shows that protected species – including black grouse, buzzards, golden plover and curlews – which are all found at Wester Dod – suffer breeding decline with poorly sited wind farms.”

17 January 2010,  Daily Echo, Wind farms, a noise nuisance?

They could generate enough electricity to light up about half a million homes by harnessing the power of the wind.

But while environmentalists have championed the prospect of up to 200 giant wind turbines rising 145m out of the Channel, there are growing concerns about the presence of a next-generation wind farm off the New Forest coast.

The Noise Abatement Society (NAS) has today issued a stark warning that public health could suffer from low frequency noise and a possible hum.

Meanwhile the Hamble-based Royal Yachting Association (RYA) said the proposed site west of the Isle of Wight, one of nine in UK waters ministers hope will together be able to deliver 32GW, or a quarter of the UK’s total electricity needs, was of “greatest concern”.

Tourism bosses too are keen for more information after revelations that the wind farm – about 12 miles from the coast, or even closer – could be visible from the shoreline, which would have wide implications for the enjoyment of the pebbled beaches and waters along the Forest coastline.

The NAS is familiar with complaints about the health effects of onshore wind farms, and has seen a “significant” increase in recent years.

Locals near the wind farm at Bears Down in Cornwall, for example, say they have experienced headaches, migraines, nausea, dizziness, palpitations, tinnitus, sleep disorders, stress anxiety and depression.

NAS managing director Lisa Lavia said more research was needed into the offshore variety. She said: “We welcome this development in principle but further research and consideration needs to be given to the low frequency noise and vibration that such structures cause. If not sited correctly, public health will suffer considerably.”

The society points to a review for the Department for environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) which found low frequency noise and hum can cause annoyance, loss of sleep, body vibrations and stress.

Soul mentioned on BBC News

The Independent asks "Are wind farms a health risk? US scientist identifies 'wind turbine syndrome'          

                   and see the Editorial comment !

29/7/09  BBC NEWS, "Adverts 'halved size of turbines " (West Ancroft)

Gordon Brown visits Newcastle and is questioned about wind farms :

Recently the Prime Minister and The Minister for the North East, Nick Brown, gave a “Question and Answer” session in Newcastle. Amongst the invited audience were some guests of the “The Journal”, Karen Archbold (from CREDIT, the group opposing the wind farm proposals in Tynedale) was among them. Click here to see a clip of her question, and the answer from Nick Brown. The evening was not specifically about wind energy, but rather an opportunity by the Labour party to publicise their latest campaign “Building Britain’s Future”.

"Number of wind turbines to quadruple under Renewable Energy Strategy"

Wind turbine revolution at the expense of natural beauty"

and       "Wind Farms will put off visitors"        

2nd August, The Independent "Are wind farms a health risk? US scientist identifies 'wind turbine syndrome'

Noise and vibration coming from large turbines are behind an increase in heart disease, migraine, panic attacks and other health problems, according to research by an American doctor

Until now, the Government and the wind companies have denied any health risks associated with the powerful noises and vibrations emitted by wind turbines

Living too close to wind turbines can cause heart disease, tinnitus, vertigo, panic attacks, migraines and sleep deprivation, according to groundbreaking research to be published later this year by an American doctor.

Dr Nina Pierpont, a leading New York paediatrician, has been studying the symptoms displayed by people living near wind turbines in the US, the UK, Italy, Ireland and Canada for more than five years. Her findings have led her to confirm what she has identified as a new health risk, wind turbine syndrome (WTS). This is the disruption or abnormal stimulation of the inner ear's vestibular system by turbine infrasound and low-frequency noise, the most distinctive feature of which is a group of symptoms which she calls visceral vibratory vestibular disturbance, or VVVD. They cause problems ranging from internal pulsation, quivering, nervousness, fear, a compulsion to flee, chest tightness and tachycardia – increased heart rate. Turbine noise can also trigger nightmares and other disorders in children as well as harm cognitive development in the young, she claims. However, Dr Pierpont also makes it clear that not all people living close to turbines are susceptible.

Until now, the Government and the wind companies have denied any health risks associated with the powerful noises and vibrations emitted by wind turbines. Acoustic engineers working for the wind energy companies and the Government say that aerodynamic noise produced by turbines pose no risk to health, a view endorsed recently by acousticians at Salford University. They have argued that earlier claims by Dr Pierpont are "imaginary" and are likely to argue that her latest findings are based on a sample too small to be authoritative.

• Leading article: Wind power – a cautionary word

At the heart of Dr Pierpont's findings is that humans are affected by low-frequency noise and vibrations from wind turbines through their ear bones, rather like fish and other amphibians. That humans have the same sensitivity as fish is based on new discoveries made by scientists at Manchester University and New South Wales last year. This, she claims, overturns the medical orthodoxy of the past 70 years on which acousticians working for wind farms are using to base their noise measurements. "It has been gospel among acousticians for years that if a person can't hear a sound, it's too weak for it to be detected or registered by any other part of the body," she said. "But this is no longer true. Humans can hear through the bones. This is amazing. It would be heretical if it hadn't been shown in a well-conducted experiment."

In the UK, Dr Christopher Hanning, founder of the British Sleep Society, who has also backed her research, said: "Dr Pierpont's detailed recording of the harm caused by wind turbine noise will lay firm foundations for future research. It should be required reading for all planners considering wind farms. Like so many earlier medical pioneers exposing the weaknesses of current orthodoxy, Dr Pierpont has been subject to much denigration and criticism and ... it is tribute to her strength of character and conviction that this important book is going to reach publication."

Dr Pierpont's thesis, which is to be published in October by K-Selected Books, has been peer reviewed and includes an endorsement from Professor Lord May, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government. Lord May describes her research as "impressive, interesting and important".

Her new material about the impact of turbine noise on health will be of concern to the Government given its plans for about 4,000 new wind turbines across the country. Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has made wind power a central part of his new green policy to encourage renewable energy sources. Another 3,000 are planned off-shore.

Drawing on the early work of Dr Amanda Harry, a British GP in Portsmouth who had been alerted by her patients to the potential health risk, Dr Pierpont gathered together 10 further families from around the world who were living near large wind turbines, giving her a cluster of 38 people, from infants to age 75, to explore the pathophysiology of WTS for the case series. Eight of the 10 families she analysed for the study have now moved away from their homes.

In a rare interview, Dr Pierpont, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told The Independent on Sunday: "There is no doubt that my clinical research shows that the infrasonic to ultrasonic noise and vibrations emitted by wind turbines cause the symptoms which I am calling wind turbine syndrome. There are about 12 different health problems associated with WTS and these range from tachycardia, sleep disturbance, headaches, tinnitus, nausea, visual blurring, panic attacks with sensations of internal quivering to more general irritability.

"The wind industry will try to discredit me and disparage me, but I can cope with that. This is not unlike the tobacco industry dismissing health issues from smoking. The wind industry, however, is not composed of clinicians, nor is it made up of people suffering from wind turbines." The IoS has a copy of the confidential manuscript which is exhaustive in its research protocol and detailed case series, drawing on the work of leading otolaryngologists and neurotologists – ear, nose and throat clinical specialists.

Some of the earliest research into the impact of low-frequency noise and vibrations was undertaken by Portuguese doctors studying the effects on military and civil personnel flying at high altitudes and at supersonic speed. They found that this exposure may also cause the rare illness, vibroacoustic disorder or VAD, which causes changes to the structure of certain organs such as the heart and lungs and may well be caused by vibrations from turbines. Another powerful side effect of turbines is the impact which the light thrown off the blades – known as flicker – has on people who suffer from migraines and epilepsy.

Campaigners have consistently argued that much research hitherto has been based on written complaints to environmental health officers and manufacturers, not on science-based research. But in Denmark, Germany and France, governments are moving towards building new wind farms off-shore because of concern over the potential health and environmental risks. In the UK there are no such controls, and a growing number of lobbyists, noise experts and government officials are also beginning to query the statutory noise levels being given to councils when deciding on planning applications from wind farm manufacturers. Lobbyists claim a new method of measuring is needed.

Dr Pierpont, who has funded all the research herself and is independent of any organisation, recommends at least a 2km set-back distance between potential wind turbines and people's homes, said: "It is irresponsible of the wind turbine companies – and governments – to continue building wind turbines so close to where people live until there has been a proper epidemiological investigation of the full impact on human health.

"What I have shown in my research is that many people – not all – who have been living close to a wind turbine running near their homes display a range of health illnesses and that when they move away, many of these problems also go away."

A breakthrough into understanding more of the impact of vibrations came last year, she said, when scientists at Manchester University and Prince of Wales Clinical School and Medical Research Institute in Sydney showed that the normal human vestibular system has a fish or frog-like sensitivity to low-frequency vibration. This was a turning point in understanding the nature of the problem, Dr Pierpont added, because it overturns the orthodoxy of the current way of measuring noise. "It is clear from the new evidence that the methods being used by acousticians goes back to research first carried out in the 1930s and is now outdated."

Dr Pierpont added that the wind turbine companies constantly argue that the health problems are "imaginary, psychosomatic or malingering". But she said their claims are "rubbish" and that medical evidence supports that the reported symptoms are real.

Case study: 'My husband had pneumonia, my father-in-law had a heart attack. Nobody was ill before'

Jane Davis, 53, a retired NHS manager, and her husband, Julian, 44, a farmer, lived in Spalding, Lincolnshire, until the noise of a wind farm 930m away forced them to leave

"People describe the noise as like an aeroplane that never arrives. My husband developed pneumonia very quickly after the turbines went up, having never had chest problems before. We suffer constant headaches and ear nuisance. My mother-in-law developed pneumonia and my husband developed atrial fibrillation – a rapid heartbeat. He had no pre-existing heart disease. Our blood pressure has gone up. My father-in-law has suffered a heart attack, tinnitus and marked hearing loss.

" I understand this can be regarded as a coincidence, but nobody was ill before 2006."

The defence: 'Wind turbines are quiet and safe'

The British Wind Energy Association, UK's biggest renewable energy trade association, said last night: "One of the first things first-time visitors to wind farms usually say is that they are surprised how quiet the turbines are.

"To put things in context: the London Borough of Westminster registered around 300,000 noise complaints from residents in 2008, none from wind turbines. The total number of noise complaints to local councils across the country runs into millions.

"In contrast, an independent study on wind farms and noise in 2007 found only four complaints from about 2,000 turbines in the country, three of which were resolved by the time the report was published.

"Wind turbines are quiet, safe and sustainable. It is not surprising that, according to a DTI report, 94 per cent of people who live near wind turbines are in favour of them. There is no scientific research to suggest that wind turbines are in any way harmful, and even many of the detractors of wind energy are honest enough to admit this.

"Noise from wind farms is a non-problem, and we need to move away from this unproductive and unscientific debate, and focus on our targets on reducing carbon emissions."

Editorial Leader comment:

All new technologies carry risk. That is true of benign new technologies as well as the old industrial sort. This paper's report on the potential health hazards of wind turbines, generators of eco-friendly wind power, will be unwelcome for many environmentalists and indeed for the Government, which for entirely creditable reasons is committed to a great increase in their number. But a new book by a New York paediatrician, Dr Nina Pierpont, on which our report is based and which draws on international studies, ought not to be ignored.

This paper is in favour of wind turbines. But Dr Pierpont suggests that the vibrations and low-level subsonic noise that is emitted can cause a range of health problems, including sleep disorders, and may aggravate more serious underlying conditions. She attributes this to the fact that the human ear is far more sensitive to vibrations, not merely audible noise, than we have assumed. And the disruption to the ear's vestibular system – directly linked to our sense of balance – caused by vibrations and low-level noise from turbines is a factor that the British Government has not, so far, taken into account in assessing whether to commission wind farms. For the sake of public reassurance, it should.

This newspaper (Independent on Sunday) believes that Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy, ought to study these findings, as indeed should the Department for Health. And we do so as firm supporters of the principle that Britain must take its environmental responsibilities seriously, and as a supporter of Mr Miliband's radical White Paper on energy. It is not incompatible with support for green issues to suggest that the move towards renewable energy sources should take account of human health concerns. Indeed, the Government stands a far greater chance of winning public support for reducing carbon emissions if it shows it is receptive to new scientific findings. Public health issues and eco-sensitivity must not be mutually exclusive if people are to be won over to the larger project of changing our patterns of energy consumption.

We hope, therefore, that Mr Miliband will not simply dismiss Dr Pierpont's book, which will be published in October, simply as ammunition for what he describes as "socially unacceptable" opposition to wind power. Dr Pierpont's research was self-funded, and she is not personally opposed to wind turbines. Only last week, we saw the consequences of a cavalier attitude to health in the decommissioning of the steelworks at Corby, which resulted in some children conceived at the time being born with deformities. If the Government were to continue to commission and site wind

farms without regard for these new scientific findings, ministers, or their successors, may be laying the taxpayer open to the possibility of large claims for compensation. More importantly, they may be exposing innocent members of the public, including children, to avoidable health problems.

The obvious recommendations that flow from the new research about the effects of wind turbines on a range of health issues – effects that also flow, to a lesser extent, from reflected light off the blades – are actually relatively modest. Foremost, there is an urgent need for credible official research into the health effects of the turbines. Then there is a prudential argument for postponing the commissioning of land-based wind farms until they are shown to be safe. At the very least, they should be treated like electricity pylons, and houses should not be built close by – the French government allows a radius of 1.5km for residential developments near wind turbines, while Dr Pierpont recommends a radius of 2km.

This approach may seem contrary to a vigorous commitment to greener energy, but it need not be. Additionally, wind power is just one of several good options. It may seem perverse just now, given the weather, to argue for solar energy, but the German government has made huge strides in the past decade in promoting the production and use of solar energy panels. It has set a useful example, which the White Paper seeks to emulate, in encouraging citizens to generate solar energy for sale to the national grid. Japan too, has embraced solar energy. There is also wave power, a potentially vast source of energy, which should be explored further.

In any event, Dr Pierpont has made an important contribution to a debate about wind turbines that should be conducted not between champions and opponents of renewable energy, but within the community of those who want this country to behave in an environmentally responsible way. That we can and should do.

1 August The Guardian "A wind farm is not the answer"

The green movement's fixation with technology reveals that we are asking the wrong questions

How would you imagine an environmentalist would react when presented with the following proposition? A power company plans to build a new development on a stretch of wild moorland. It will be nearly seven miles long, and consist of 150 structures, each made of steel and mounted on hundreds of tons of concrete. They will be almost 500 feet high, and will be accompanied by 73 miles of road. The development will require the quarrying of 1.5m cubic metres of rock and the cutting out and dumping of up to a million cubic metres of peat.

The answer is that if you are like many modern environmentalists you will support this project without question. You will dismiss anyone who opposes it as a nimby who is probably in the pay of the coal or nuclear lobby, and you will campaign for thousands more like it to be built all over the country.

The project is, of course, a wind farm – or, if we want to be less Orwellian in our terminology, a wind power station. This particular project is planned for Shetland, but there are many like it in the pipeline. The government wants to see 10,000 new turbines across Britain by 2020 (though it is apparently not prepared to support the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight). The climate and energy secretary, Ed Miliband, says there is a need to "grow the market" for industrial wind energy, and to aid this growth he is offering £1bn in new loans to developers and the reworking of the "antiquated" (ie democratic) planning system, to allow local views on such developments to be overridden.

Does this sound very "green" to you? To me it sounds like a society fixated on growth and material progress going about its destructive business in much the same way as ever, only without the carbon. It sounds like a society whose answer to everything is more and bigger technology; a society so cut off from nature that it believes industrialising a mountain is a "sustainable" thing to do.

It also sounds like an environmental movement in danger of losing its way. The support for industrial wind developments in wild places seems to me a symbol of a lack of connectedness to an actual, physical environment. A development like that of Shetland is not an example of sustainable energy: it is the next phase in the endless human advance upon the non-human world – the very thing that the environmental movement came into being to resist.

Campaigners in Cumbria are fighting a proposed wind development near the mountain known as Saddleback, a great, brown hulk of a peak which Wordsworth preferred to call by its Celtic name, Blencathra. Wordsworth thought the wild uplands a place of epiphany. Other early environmentalists, from Thoreau to Emerson, knew too of the power of mountain and moor to provide a clear-eyed and humbling view of humanity.

Many of today's environmentalists will scoff if you speak to them of such things. Their concerns are couched in the language of business and technology – gigawatt hours, parts per million of carbon, peer-reviewed papers and "sustainable development". The green movement has become fixated on a single activity: reducing carbon emissions. It's understandable, what the science tells us about the coming impacts of climate change is terrifying. But if climate change poses a huge question, we are responding with the wrong answers.

The question we should be asking is what kind of society we should live in. The question we are actually asking is how we can power this one without producing carbon. This is not to say that renewable energy technologies are bad. We need to stop burning fossil fuels fast, and wind power can make a contribution if the turbines are sensitively sited and on an appropriate scale.

But the challenge posed by climate change is not really about technology. It is not even about carbon. It is about a society that has systematically hewed its inhabitants away from the natural world, and turned that world into a resource. It is about a society that imagines it operates in a bubble; that it can keep growing in a finite world, forever.

When we clamour for more wind-power stations in the wilderness, we perhaps think we are helping to slow this machine, but we are actually helping to power it. We are still promoting, perhaps unintentionally, the familiar mantras of industrial civilisation: growth can continue forever; technological gigantism will save us; our lives can go on much as they always have.

In the end, climate change presents us with a simple question: are we going to live within our means, or are we, like so many civilisations before us, going to collapse? In that question lies a radical challenge to the direction and mythologies of industrial society. All the technology in the world will not answer it.

30 July The Journal,"Don't dismiss wind critics as nimbys"

DISMISSING people who oppose renewable schemes such as wind farms in their area as “Nimbys” is counterproductive and could damage public support for clean energy, researchers warned yesterday.

A study found only 2% of more than 3,000 people questioned about nearby renewable schemes fell into the “not in my backyard” (nimby) category of strongly supporting low-carbon power in general but opposing their local project.

There was substantial support among residents for renewable energy, both generally and in the local area, but it could be “fragile” – particularly in the case of onshore wind farms and biomass, lead researcher Dr Patrick Devine-Wright from the University of Manchester said.

The researchers urged the Government and developers to address the legitimate concerns people had about the impacts and delivery of renewable schemes, to ensure targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions from energy are met.

The study follows the publication of the Government’s renewable energy strategy which lays out plans for thousands of onshore and offshore wind turbines around the country by 2020.

But Vestas, the owners of a wind turbine factory in the Isle of Wight which is due to close this week, has warned local planning processes are holding up the development of a favourable onshore wind market in the UK.

One of the researchers, Professor Gordon Walker of Lancaster University, said: “Just calling protesters ‘Nimbies’ and suggesting, as Ed Miliband recently did, that it should be socially unacceptable to oppose wind turbines, is just counterproductive. People have a democratic right to express their views, to scrutinise development proposals and to argue their case.”

The researchers examined local attitudes to 10 renewable schemes, including onshore and offshore wind farms, biomass generators and marine projects.

Overall, around two-fifths (38.1%) of local residents polled were supportive of the scheme near them. However, some types of scheme were more controversial than others, with onshore wind getting the least backing.

15th July, The Guardian " Planning: Power struggles"

A quango that the Tories have pledged to scrap is set to fast-track controversial projects, from wind farms to runways, in the run-up to the election  

Comment, "People must be at the heart of planning"

The IPC should finally give the public a vision of the future - so what's wrong with that, asks John Vidal, The Guardian's Environment Correspondant.        

13th July, The Times, "Number of wind turbines to quadruple under Renewable Energy Strategy"   Click here>

Editorial, "Tilting at Wind Farms",
The Government’s plans to concentrate on wind power at the expense of other renewable energy sources could prove to be a costly mistake.

 

9th July, The Journal "Have your say on wind farms"

PUBLIC views on proposals to build two new wind farms in Northumberland are to be sought at meetings taking place later this month. Northumberland County Council has received applications from Novera Energy proposing the Todhills wind farm development, near Pigdon, just north of Morpeth, and another close to Wingates village, near Longhorsley. A public meeting to hear local views on the Wingates scheme will be held on Monday July 20, at 7pm, in Wingates village hall.

On Wednesday, July 22, at 7pm, a meeting about the Todhills proposals takes place in the Council Chamber at County Hall, in Morpeth. Both events will give planning officers and councillors the chance to hear local opinions at first-hand, ahead of a decision on the application being made. Anyone who cannot make the meetings, but would like to give their views, can write to the Central Development Management Team, County Hall, Morpeth, NE61 2EF, or e-mail planning@

There are currently a number of wind farm applications at different stages of the planning process across the county. These include a triple windfarm application in the North Tyne Valley and applications for 20 turbines at three different sites close to Berwick, both of which are awaiting the outcome of separate public inquiries.

(There are more applications - and many more schemes that have either already been consented but not yet built, or that are at the pre-application stage - than this article mentions. Have a look at the www.windbyte.co.uk website for an idea of the scale of the wind rush in the North East of England and South East Scotland.)

15 June The Journal,"One blade as big as Berwick Town Hall"

MRS Russell (Voice of the North, June 3) has now told us on at least three occasions that she wants windturbines in her garden. Personally, I don’t much care whether she has windturbines, gnomes or fairies in what is obviously a very large garden.

However, I would point out that the wind turbines she wishes to inflict on the rest of us, in a lowland, low-wind, populated part of Northumberland, would be 110m high. A single 45m blade on one of these turbines is almost the same size as Berwick’s Town Hall or one of her Wooler pylons.

Mrs Russell may like living next to static pylons but, unless she is stone deaf and blind, I doubt she would enjoy living with the noise and flicker effects of giant wind turbines. She has obviously not heard of the Davis family, who have abandoned their home in Lincolnshire due to the nuisance caused by wind turbines nearly a kilometre away.

The cost of the Berwick public inquiry was mentioned in her letter. This inquiry has been forced on everybody by speculative wind developers who will not accept the refusal of their planning applications by the local planning authority. It has nothing to do with Moorsyde Action Group.

If Mrs Russell is genuinely concerned by the waste of public money, she should look to the issue of the hidden subsidies paid to windturbine operators from our electricity bills. These amount to some 54% of a wind power station’s income and have been the subject of serious criticism from Ofgem, the industry watchdog, and the National Audit Office.

Even Professor Sir David King, who served as Government chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, has criticised the United Kingdom’s drive for wind power and its results in causing fuel poverty.

As for Mrs Russell’s kind offer to let me pay for a turbine in her large back garden, I am sorry to say that I live in a two-up, two-down cottage with a tiny back garden. I was, according to Government figures, “poor” even before this business started.

I will count myself even poorer if the Northumbrian landscape is trashed with industrial wind turbines. DON BROWNLOW, Norham, Northumberland (website: www.windbyte.co.uk)

12 June, The Journal "Noise guidelines could stop wind farm approval" Permission may now be hard to get

NEW noise guidelines for wind farm developers could make getting approval for sites more difficult. Independent consultants who sat on the Government Noise Working Group recommend more stringent tests that should be carried out, which would make it harder for developers to meet acceptable noise levels. The moves have been welcomed by wind farm opposition groups, who claim the statement backs calls for more rigorous tests. Karen Archbold lives in Great Bavington, near Kirkharle, Northumberland, which is close to an area currently the subject of a triple wind farm inquiry, the result of which is due this year. She said: “What they are saying is that developers have got to do their noise monitoring and predictions properly. “The point is developers are going to find they will not get away with as much as they previously have done. If this had been out before they would not have had a leg to stand on. ”

The guidelines relate to issues such as background noise measurement, predicted noise levels, vibration and low frequency noise. Pippa Bowyer, of law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn which acts for developers and advises them on procedure, said: “Our concern is they have added three layers of conservatism in the calculations. It means that some developments that have already been consented might not have been able to meet the guidelines. “If this is adopted it could have very serious implications.” An ‘e-bulletin’ issued by the law firm following the recommendations added: “The potential impacts on local residents from wind farm noise has always been a key issue and will increasingly be so.“With the discouragement of wind farm developments in remoter areas and with many of the ‘low impact’ sites now consented or constructed, wind farms are inevitably going to be brought closer to residential receptors. The direct result of this is that the noise limits set in ETSU-R-97 (a Government report on acceptable noise levels) will become more relevant.’’  It adds: “Using this new methodology may mean that a number of projects, which have previously been assessed as acceptable, may now fail or struggle to meet the ETSU-R-97 limits. “We also understand that the assumptions in relation to ground absorption in particular are based on very limited data from operating wind farms.“This lack of data has led to uncertainty as to which absorption level to apply in the assessment. If the industry is concerned about the changes proposed by the independent consultants who sat on the Noise Working Group, the only answer is for the industry to fund further assessment.“We would therefore advise any developer ... trying to get their application consented, to urgently review their noise assessment in light of this statement.”

25 May, The Times, "Green energy plans in disarray as wind farm giant slashes investment."  

"Green energy not such a breeze"

One by one, the energy giants that hoisted green flags and trumpeted their conversion to renewables are ducking and diving and hiding behind the curtains.

Iberdrola, a big investor in wind farms in Spain and the owner of ScottishPower, is slashing its spending on renewables by 40 per cent. Shell said recently it would no longer invest in wind turbines, preferring to focus its efforts on new biofuel technology, while BP has opted out of the UK renewables market, deeming it to be a poor bet.

It is tempting to see the great push for renewable energy in Europe as a fair-weather phenomenon. The performance of Britain's turbines is a case in point - for much of January they were operating at about 10 per cent of capacity.

That should be no surprise, given that periods of severe cold (or heat) coincide with lack of wind, but it doesn't help when a utility is trying to deliver power into the grid, not to mention returns to its shareholders.

These issues are critical, because we need to begin building more power capacity today if we are to avoid blackouts by 2015 when we are committed to closing old coal-fired power stations.

People who can build these things are saying that they are not

convinced. Shell last year pulled out of the London Array, a £3 billion wind farm in the Thames Estuary capable of supplying 750,000 homes. The remaining investors are hinting heavily that without more government bungs, the mills won't spin.

Without reforms of the tortuous British planning process, the prospects for development of onshore windfarm looks bleak.

Everyone is openly looking at gas, which gets cheaper by the day, and utilities drool at the thought of coal, where the price has fallen so far that mines are closing in Australia and Russia. Gas is a short-term solution, but it cannot be the only option if we are to avoid a rising dependence on Russia for fuel.

All of this is embarrassing for a Government that likes to portray itself as the champion of green causes. But it is pointless for Ed Miliband, the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, to berate utilities for not building stuff that is uneconomic and, anyway, cannot be relied upon to deliver the power we need at the flick of a switch.

The Government needs to decide whether it is prepared to commit the nation to a very expensive energy future or whether it would rather hedge its bets and build a few coal-fired generators, just to keep the lights on.

"Action onwind farm radar threat to aircraft"

24 May, Scotland on Sunday "Wind turbine revolution is at the expense of natural beauty"

'BREATHES there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said

"This is my own, my native land –

 and what a gruesome tip they've made of it…?'"

Nobody ravages a landscape more devastatingly than an environmentalist. The crazed drive to promote wind farms has destroyed Scotland's natural beauty by peppering our rural wildernesses with Martian wind turbines – to no practical benefit.

Last week Alex Salmond performed the formal opening ceremony at Whitelee wind farm, outside Glasgow, run by the Spanish company Iberdrola Renovables through its Scottish subsidiary ScottishPower Renewables. This is now the largest onshore wind farm in Europe, comprising 140 wind turbines. The owners' publicity material trumpeted its generating capacity of 322 MWA, to be increased to 600 MWA within a few years.

Promoters of wind power are very keen on proclaiming their turbines' "generating capacity". What they are less keen on broadcasting is the fact that Government figures show an average capacity utilisation factor (CF) of just 28 per cent for onshore wind farms. So all those impressive megawatt and gigawatt figures have to be adjusted accordingly.

A study conducted by the Renewable Energy Foundation discovered that only a few Scottish wind farms attain the 28 per cent of theoretical capacity, while in some parts of England the figure is below 10 per cent. This reflects the fact that turbines will not work if the wind is not strong enough, while if it is too strong the generators have to be locked down to avoid damage. In a speech in the House of Lords on 7 May, Lord Reay claimed an idleness rate for turbines of between 55 and 110 days a year.

Amid its triumphalist announcements last week, Scottish Power made no reference to the remarks made to Reuters news agency on 22 April by Rupert Steele, regulation director at ScottishPower Renewables, in which he warned that Britain, aiming to install some 30 gigawatts (GW) of wind turbines by 2020, will need to build almost an equivalent capacity of backup power generation to cover periods when the turbines are idle. "Thirty gigawatts of wind maybe requires 25 GW of backup," he said. "The problem is that if you've got a high-pressured area, you may have quite a large area where there's no wind at all…"
So, what we are actually doing, at a time of financial stringency, is creating two parallel energy systems, at more than double the necessary cost, to meet demented EU targets, while simultaneously destroying our landscape – in the name of environmentalism. As Lord Reay pointed out, "per delivered megawatt, the capital cost of wind is three to five times the cost of nuclear, ten times the cost of gas and 15 times the cost of coal".

Scotland is the worst loser in the United Kingdom from the wind power hysteria. Our landscape – our greatest national asset – is desperately vulnerable. To look at the online map created by Scottish Natural Heritage, charting the growth of wind farms, is a deeply dismaying experience. The infestation is already far-flung and mostly afflicts sites of natural beauty. The most high-profile current controversy involves the proposed Viking wind farm on Shetland, comprising 150 turbines over 12,800 hectares. Yet Viking Energy itself has produced a worst-case scenario in which it would take 14.9 years to pay back the carbon dioxide emissions potentially produced from drying out peat bog over 25 years' operation.

There are issues of democracy too. So committed is the Scottish Government to renewable energy that wind farm applications in Scotland are seldom rejected, though there is only a 40 per cent approval rate in England. The SNP managed to ban nuclear power by winning a Holyrood vote in January 2008. No person of any sensitivity welcomes nuclear power, with its long-term waste disposal problems; but harsh reality may force it upon us. Of Scotland's two existing nuclear power stations, Hunterston B is due to close in 2016 and Torness in 2023. The notion that this generating capacity can be replaced by a jungle of temperamental whirligigs is infantile.

It is also outdated. True environmentalists subscribe to the Charter of Palermo, recently drawn up by a conference of European artists, academics and environmentalists chaired by former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, condemning wind farms' destruction of Europe's patrimony of natural beauty. In Britain there are already 2,434 turbines in operation, two-thirds as many under construction and more than twice as many planned. They are hideous, costly and inefficient. This madness must end.

Journal May 23rd "Turbine threat to North East Tourism"    Public inquiry into wind farm appeals

BOSSES of a historic Northumberland estate told a wind farm inquiry the turbines would damage tourism. Trustees of the Ford and Etal Estates also revealed they had been close to allowing turbines to be erected on their land, before pulling out of negotiations following a “backlash of public opinion”.

The estate, which is home to Ford Castle and the famous Flodden battlefield, was represented at a public inquiry into three bids to erect a combined 20 structures near Berwick. Its land agent Mark Cuddigan told planning inspector Ruth McKenzie, sitting at the town’s Maltings, that he believes the wind farms would have “both a material direct and indirect long-term adverse impact” on the estate by damaging its claim to be situated in the ‘stunning North Northumbrian landscape’.”

The estate comprises more than 13,000 acres of agricultural land and woodland, the villages of Ford and Etal and parts of nearby Crookham and Milfield. It is home to 48 listed buildings and 14 scheduled monuments. A total of 31 non-agricultural businesses rent property from the trustees, who employ 37 people.

Mr Cuddigan told the hearing the estate began to receive approaches from wind companies in 1995, with Force 9 Energy, developer of one of the schemes being heard at the inquiry, making contact in 2003. For more than a year, negotiations took place with the developer on erecting turbines on part of the estate, culminating in plans being entered for a monitoring mast.

Mr Cuddigan said: “The trustees were unprepared for the backlash of public opinion.”

The estate asked the developer to consider reducing the height of the turbines but this approach was rejected. As a result, the trustees pulled out of negotiations in early 2006, incurring “considerable abortive professional fees.”

The inquiry is hearing appeals by three companies which were refused planning permission by the now-defunct Berwick Borough Council last March. Your Energy is seeking seven turbines at Moorsyde, Force 9 Energy six at Barmoor and npower renewables seven at Toft Hill. Mrs McKenzie will make recommendations to Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, who will determine the three appeals. The hearing resumes on Wednesday when members of the public can have their say from 9.30am.

Journal 20th May "The delusion of Cheap electricity" LETTERS PAGE

IT is so heartening to learn that Sheena Russell wants a 115 metre wind turbine erected in her back garden so that she can benefit from cheap energy (Voice of the North, May 13). However, I am sorry to disillusion her. She will not benefit from reduced electricity bills because, thanks to the subsidy system, wind energy costs more than conventionally produced power, but that at least puts loads of profit into the coffers of the developers, such as E.ON and NPower, both German multi-nationals with portfolios of coal-fired and nuclear power plants, as well as wind turbine arrays.

I am sure she will welcome the opportunity of witnessing contractors working at least 12 hours a day, every day of the week, to build tracks and hard standing across her garden, before excavating a pit more than 900 cubic metres in volume, before back filling it with some 60 lorry loads of cement to create the foundation for her green machine.

Her turbine literally does have a large carbon footprint.

Eventually, she can then watch the turbine (she will not see much else) turning intermittently, secure in the knowledge that back-up power stations will keep her lights burning brightly, as she enjoys shadow flicker and intrusive noise pollution for the next 25 years.

E.ON, or some such developer, will be really grateful for the opportunity to profit from her land, except they will still probably want to bury the nuclear waste from their back-up generators under her garden anyway.

In making her very public but meaningless gesture, Mrs Russell can take comfort from the fact the turbine will not be erected in her back yard, or garden.

COLIN WAKELING, Berrington Lough, Northumberland

Journal May 7th "Wind inquiry must be a ‘wake-up call’

Opposition’s plea kicks off vital inquiry

A PUBLIC inquiry into three wind farm proposals in Northumberland should be a ”wake-up call” to prove that not all projects are acceptable, its opening salvoes heard yesterday.

The hearing at Berwick is considering three bids from developers hoping to put a combined 20 turbines on sites near the town.

And Northumberland County Council, which is leading the opposition, landed the first blow of the inquiry in its opening submission.

Its barrister Paul Tucker told planning inspector Ruth McKenzie, sitting at the Maltings Theatre: “It is hoped that this inquiry will act as a wake-up call that wind farm applications should not be viewed as acceptable wherever they are proposed.

“The consequences of developments should not always be viewed as acceptable.

“They are put forward on parcels of land not because they are the best sites or because they have the least visual impact, rather because they are owned by someone who is happy to give their land to wind farm developers.

“It is considered that all three of these ill-conceived schemes are kicked into the long grass in the hope that other better considered schemes come forward.”

The inquiry is hearing appeals by the three companies which were refused planning permission by the now-defunct Berwick Borough Council last March.

Your Energy is seeking seven turbines at Moorsyde, Catamount Energy six at Barmoor and npower renewables seven at Toft Hill.

The companies all spoke of the contribution their projects would make to meeting Northumberland’s renewable energy targets.

Marcus Trinick, for Catamount, said: “We will invite you in due course to recommend the permission be granted ... set against the background of global, EU, and UK planning policies which have not just remained unwavering over the years For a video vox pop about the

wind farm bid, go to www.journallive.co.uk/videos but which now have a marked increased urgency.”

The plans are being opposed by the county council - taking over the borough’s involvement, action groups Save our Unspoilt Landscape, Moorsyde Action Group and Inappropriate Sighting of Renewable Energy Structures, and a band of residents from Ancroft Southmoor.

Mrs McKenzie told the hearing the main issues to be discussed at the inquiry are visual impact of the turbines on the surrounding landscape, cumulative impact of the three schemes and a fourth planned for West Ancroft, and the effect of the Toft Hill scheme on the Duddo Standing Stones.

The inspector said it was unlikely the hearing would be completed within its five-week programme.

Mrs McKenzie will make recommendations to Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, who will determine the three appeals

5th May, The Journal, "Public inquiry into proposals for turbines" A public inquiry will begin at Berwick, close to where renewable energy companies are seeking to establish three wind farms. The inquiry was triggered by the now defunct Berwick Borough Council’s refusal of the three applications last March and the developers’ subsequent appeals. The companies say their projects would help tackle climate change, contribute to meeting renewable energy BATTLE over moves to put 20 turbines in the Northumberland countryside resumes tomorrow. targets and point to the area’s designation as suitable for some form of wind development. Three action groups are fighting the proposals, alongside Northumberland County Council, which has assumed the borough council’s responsibilities. Opponents say the structures will devastate the landscape with their visual impact, and also the cultural heritage of the area. They also fear the turbines will create noise pollution for nearby residents. The action groups have each struggled to find tens of thousands of pounds to hire barristers and planning experts to make their case at the inquiry. Moorsyde Action Group is opposing Your Energy’s bid for seven turbines there. Its spokesman said last night: “All three groups are having to find very large sums of money, but we have to do everything we can to protect our countryside and the amenity of local people. Our ‘far horizons’ are not only of spiritual value in a world where unspoilt countryside is at a premium, but they are the main asset of a local economy whose most important industry is tourism.”  Save our Unspoilt Landscape is contesting Catamount Energy and Force 9 Energy’s proposal for six turbines at Barmoor. The group’s Andrew Joicey said: “We are all as determined as ever that this is not a suitable landscape to be turned into a wind power station. “When you look at the clustering of the wind turbines it is obvious that permission for any of them would lead to a proliferation of more sites and we firmly believe that this is not the right area to build wind turbines on that scale.” The third opposition group is Inappropriate Sighting of Renewable Energy Structures, which is fighting npower renewables’ bid for seven turbines at Toft Hill. The company’s regional development manager Clare Wilson was last night expecting at least one of the schemes to be approved given the area’s designation. She said: “We obviously think our scheme is very good and we have done it properly. We would not take it to inquiry if we did not think we could win.” Your Energy’s development manager Alexandra Bowers said: “We know this is an excellent site for a wind farm and we look forward to this appeal process and a swift decision.” The inquiry takes place at Berwick’s Maltings theatre, beginning at 10am today. It is being heard by planning inspector Ruth McKenzie and is expected to last five weeks. 29th April, Berwick Advertiser  "Battle lines drawn for turbine inquiry" Clare & Frank Dakin who are fighting Toft hill, pictured next to Duddo stones The sides in the triple wind farm inquiry are gearing up for start of a 16-day hearing, the outcome of which could have far reaching consequences for the landscape of north Northumberland. The inquiry opens tomorrow, May 6, at 10am in The Maltings, Berwick, with subsequent sessions commencing at 9.30am. The inquiry is timetabled to finish on Thursday, June 4 and is open to the public. The conjoined inquiry is a result of three appeals lodged by developers Catamount Energy, Moorsyde Wind Farm Ltd (Your Energy) and npower after Berwick Borough Council rejected their applications for the erection of a total of 20 wind turbines, all measuring more than 110m in height, at a meeting in March last year. The six-hour marathon meeting ended with councillors voting 8-1 in favour of an amendment to reject two of the applications on the grounds that their visual impact outweighed any environmental benefit. Planning officers had recommended approval of the seven turbine scheme at Moorsyde, near Ancroft, and the six turbine scheme at Barmoor, near Lowick. The third proposal, for seven turbines at Toft Hill, near Duddo, was rejected by an 8-0 margin in line with the recommendation of planning officers. The decision was received with jubilant celebrations from many of the public who had packed into The Maltings theatre to watch the drama unfold, however, all three applicants indicated their intention to appeal. Ever since the first hint of the wind farm proposals, as early as 2004, opposition groups have vehemently opposed the plans, and four of them will play an important part in the upcoming inquiry as ‘Rule Six’ parties. This status allows Moorsyde Action Group (MAG), Save Our Unspoilt Landscape (SOUL), Inappropriate Siting of Renewable Energy Structures (ISORES), and the new group Ancroft South Moor Group (ASMG) to be legally represented at the inquiry, call their own expert witnesses and cross-examine those put forward by the appellants. More than 20 expert witnesses are expected to be called during the course of the inquiry, which will examine landscape and visual matters, cultural heritage, planning policy, and, depending on the scope and extent of evidence presented, tourism, noise and wildlife. This set-up has partly been adopted to enable the cash-strapped opponents to produce their expert witnesses and legal teams at one time, rather than on all 16 days across the five weeks the inquiry will sit. To allow them to have legal representation and their own witnesses, the opposition groups have had to generate a great deal of funding, and their fundraising efforts continue as the inquiry rapidly approaches. The planning inspector, Ruth MacKenzie, intends to carry out site visits over several days, both with representatives of the main parties and also unaccompanied. These visits will not only take in the proposed turbine sites themselves but also viewpoints and locations outwith the proposed areas for the wind farm sites. At the pre-inquiry meeting in February, which was attended by more than 150 people, the inspector requested that the turbine sites be marked on the ground, but MAG chairman, Mike Maud, expressed a wish that the most northerly and southerly turbines at the Moorsyde site be marked with blimps 110m high. Appellants npower and Moorsyde Wind Farm Ltd rejected this suggestion, although Catamount Energy’s advocate, Marcus Trinick, said that his clients would have no problem with blimps being flown at Barmoor, provided they were erected by a fully-insured third party, with no expense to the appellant and with advance warning given before anyone goes onto the land. The final decision on the appeals will be taken by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears MP, rather than Ruth MacKenzie, after the decision was ‘recovered’ by the government as the proposals are deemed “of major significance for the delivery of the Government’s climate change programme and energy policies.” Wednesday, May 27, will be set aside for the public to speak on the proposals and any verbal submissions must be accompanied by a written submission with four copies provided. In order to assist with the programming of the day, anyone who expects to speak for more than 20 minutes should contact the programme officer, Samantha Foulis, in advance on (01289) 301841 or samantha.foulis@northumberland.gov.uk, but there is no need for anyone who is planning to speak on that day to turn up on the opening day of the inquiry. If someone wants to speak, but cannot attend on the day set aside for public representation, they should contact Miss Foulis to arrange an alternative date. Those who just want to submit something in writing should send it to the programme officer, for the inspector’s attention, anytime between now and Tuesday, June 2. The inquiry will sit on the following dates (inclusive): May 6 — 8, 12 — 15, 19 — 21 and 27 — 29; and June 2 — 4. A website containing full details of the inquiry and all relevant documents has been set up and can be accessed at www.persona.uk.com/berwick 9th April, Financial Post, "Wind Power is a complete disaster"
By Michael J. Trebilcock There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is instructive. Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone). Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery. Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands aIndustrial wind power is not a viable economic alternative to other energy conservation options. Again, the Danish experience is instructive. Its electricity generation costs are the highest in Europe (15¢/kwh compared to Ontario’s current rate of about 6¢). Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries says, “windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense.” Aase Madsen , the Chair of Energy Policy in the Danish Parliament, calls it “a terribly expensive disaster.” The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in 2008, on a dollar per MWh basis, the U.S. government subsidizes wind at $23.34 — compared to reliable energy sources: natural gas at 25¢; coal at 44¢; hydro at 67¢; and nuclear at $1.59, leading to what some U.S. commentators call “a huge corporate welfare feeding frenzy.” The Wall Street Journal advises that “wind generation is the prime example of what can go wrong when the government decides to pick winners.” The Economist magazine notes in a recent editorial, “Wasting Money on Climate Change,” that each tonne of emissions avoided due to subsidies to renewable energy such as wind power would cost somewhere between $69 and $137, whereas under a cap-and-trade scheme the price would be less than $15. Either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system creates incentives for consumers and producers on a myriad of margins to reduce energy use and emissions that, as these numbers show, completely overwhelm subsidies to renewables in terms of cost effectiveness. The Ontario Power Authority advises that wind producers will be paid 13.5¢/kwh (more than twice what consumers are currently paying), even without accounting for the additional costs of interconnection, transmission and back-up generation. As the European experience confirms, this will inevitably lead to a dramatic increase in electricity costs with consequent detrimental effects on business and employment. From this perspective, the government’s promise of 55,000 new jobs is a cruel delusion. A recent detailed analysis (focusing mainly on Spain) finds that for every job created by state-funded support of renewables, particularly wind energy, 2.2 jobs are lost. Each wind industry job created cost almost $2-million in subsidies. Why will the Ontario experience be different? In debates over climate change, and in particular subsidies to renewable energy, there are two kinds of green. First there are some environmental greens who view the problem as so urgent that all measures that may have some impact on greenhouse gas emissions, whatever their cost or their impact on the economy and employment, should be undertaken immediately. Then there are the fiscal greens, who, being cool to carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems that make polluters pay, favour massive public subsidies to themselves for renewable energy projects, whatever their relative impact on greenhouse gas emissions. These two groups are motivated by different kinds of green. The only point of convergence between them is their support for massive subsidies to renewable energy (such as wind turbines). This unholy alliance of these two kinds of greens (doomsdayers and rent seekers) makes for very effective, if opportunistic, politics (as reflected in the Ontario government’s Green Energy Act), just as it makes for lousy public policy: Politicians attempt to pick winners at our expense in a fast-moving technological landscape, instead of creating a socially efficient set of incentives to which we can all respond. 17 March, The Guardian, "Shell dumps wind, solar and hydro power in favour of biofuels" Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation. Executives at its annual strategy presentation said Shell, already the world's largest buyer and blender of crop-based biofuels, would also invest an unspecified amount in developing a new generat­ion of biofuels which do not use food-based crops and are less harmful to the environment. The company said it would concentrate on developing other cleaner ways of using fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. It hoped to use CCS to reduce emissions from Shell's controversial and energy-intensive oil sands projects in northern Canada. The company said that many alternative technologies did not offer attractive investment opportunities. Linda Cook, Shell's executive director of gas and power, said: "If there aren't investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won't put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewables [which made money] we would put money into it." Shell said biofuels fitted its core business of providing fuels, logistics, trading and branding. Cook added: "It's now looking like bio­fuels is one which is closest to what we do in Shell. Wind and solar are interesting [but] we may continue to struggle with other investment opportunities in the portfolio even with big subsidies in many markets. We do not expect material investment [in wind and solar] going forward." The company also confirmed that it would increase its dividend payments this year by about 5% to $10bn. Friends of the Earth (FoE) criticised Shell for freezing investment in renewables such as wind in favour of biofuels. "Shell is backing the wrong horse when it comes to renewable energy – biofuels often lead to more emissions than the petrol and diesel they replace," the campaign group said. Until recently, Shell's investment in wind power featured prominently in its corporate advertisements. FoE said the company's move heralded a slightly more honest approach. "Shell is at least being a bit more honest about the fact they are a fossil fuel company. It has seen the limitations of the greenwash it was putting out a few years ago." Shell has about 550 megawatts of wind farm capacity around the world, enough to power a city the size of Sheffield when the wind blows. Last year, it pulled out of the 1,000MW London Array project, the joint venture to build what would be the world's largest offshore wind farm, in the Thames Estuary. Former project partner E.ON has yet to decide to continue with the £3bn investment needed. Outgoing chief executive Jeroen van der Veer admitted that the company had suffered some "technology baths" in the past when it backed unprofitable technologies. "We don't do it [renewables] all." The company has predicted that by 2025, 80% of energy will come from fossil fuels and 20% from alternative energy sources. Yet it is spending just over 1% of its budget on alternative technologies. Over the past five years, only $1.7bn of the $150bn it has invested has gone towards alternative energies. Cook pointed out that at one stage the company only invested 1% of its budget on liquefied natural gas, which is now a big part of its business. "You have to start somewhere," she said.Van der Veer also admitted that Shell's overall R&D budget would "fall a bit" as the company focused on the most promising technologies and in the wake of the oil price slump. The company said it would raise debt levels to maintain dividend payments and its spending programme. Van der Veer insisted that energy demand in the long term was strong and oil prices would recover. "The problem is you don't know when the long term starts."

Britain's wind industry is calling for ­government support to shield it from the falling pound and ensure existing wind farm projects go ahead. The British Wind Energy Association is to submit a list of demands ahead of next month's budget calling for government loan guarantees and other measures amid City forecasts that the global wind industry is heading for a 20% decline this year.

The UK sector has won a deeper level of subsidies to make the recently launched third round of offshore wind licensing more attractive, but argues wider action is still required to save existing schemes. Adam Bruce, chairman of the BWEA, said urgent action was required: "If this [downturn] had happened two years ago it might have killed the industry. It is much more robust now, but clearly there are schemes that are under threat unless help can be obtained."
The BWEA says it cannot confirm what kind of help it wants from ministers because this is still being worked out, but loan guarantees and specific aid from the European Investment Bank might be in the mix. The industry says it would also like some short-term ­financial ­support similar to what the ­government is ­providing for the private finance ­initiative (PFI).
A key difficulty faced by British wind farm developers is that all turbines are imported when the value of the pound is very low against the dollar and euro. Vestas, Britain's biggest turbine maker, ships equipment from Denmark, ­pushing up the relative cost for UK wind developers.
The irony, Bruce says, is that in 2003 Vestas set up a turbine factory at Machrihanish, Scotland, only to close it down last year with the loss of 92 jobs because it said there was too little demand. Faced with these problems, the Royal Bank of Scotland and other ­leading backers of British wind farms have been pulling in their horns over project financing.

Centrica, the owner of British Gas and one of the biggest investors in wind with a £4bn programme, has already sounded the alarm over the perilous economics of the industry. The company said late last year that soaring costs, coupled with the rise in the cost of financing, meant that "we need to revisit all our numbers to ensure that our projects are economic before we give them the go-ahead". Alternative energy analysts at HSBC expect the ­industry to shrink by 20% this year although they are still hopeful that economic stimulus measures in Britain, the US and China will trigger some kind of bounce back in the second half of 2009.

BP and Shell shook confidence in the UK industry when they abandoned all plans for developing wind farms in ­Britain last year in favour of the US, where the tax treatment – and planning regime – is considered far more favourable. The exit of Shell was a particular blow because it was backing the world's ­biggest offshore wind farm, the London Array, off Kent.

19 Feb, Berwick Advertiser "Wind farm opponents still confident despite Wandylaw judgement"

16 Feb,Times letter "Barely a Puff From Wind Energy"

11 February, Berwick Advertiser "Battle lines drawn at pre-enquiry hearing into wind farm proposals"

Feb 13,The Journal "Government gives permission for turbines near Alnwick"

Jan 28th, Berwick Advertiser "Campaigners race to raise fighting fund to oppose wind farm plans"ANTI-wind farm campaigners are battling to raise money to fight a 'David and Goliath' public inquiry in May.

Members of Save Our Unspoilt Landscape (SOUL) have so far raised more than £60,000 to fight their corner at the appeal into rejected applications for wind farms at Barmoor, Moorsyde and Toft Hill, but are targeting £100,000.
Moorsyde Action Group (MAG), Inappropriate Siting of Renewable Energy Structures (ISORES) and SOUL have all registered to take part in the inquiry, which begins on May 6, but need in the region of £100,000 each to 'effectively' fight the developers, according to one local campaigner.
Andrew Joicey, who is involved with all three groups, told the Advertiser: "The cost of a barrister can be up to £100,000, and in this particular case of a conjoined public inquiry, each one of the groups (SOUL, MAG and ISORES) needs to have its own top quality barrister.
"So, each is looking at that sum of money for a barrister and they also need expert witnesses too. It is just not appropriate to have one barrister fighting all three appeals, the workload would be huge.
"This representation is necessary because the developers have extremely experienced specialist barristers and expert witnesses, whose job it is to try to discredit local objectors and their witnesses.
"It is extremely difficult to adequately match the barrister power of the other side, it really is a David and Goliath situation," he added.
SOUL, MAG and ISORES have registered as 'Rule Six' parties in the inquiry, which means they have the right to be represented by various consultants and barristers, call local and professional expert witnesses, and have the right to cross-examine witnesses put up by the developers.
However, the three will only be able to take a full part in the inquiry if the funds can be raised, or may only be able to play a smaller role, possibly with limited expert witnesses.
Mr Joicey said that while each group has had some success raising funds, the fact that all three wind farm applications fall within such a small geographical area means there is a limit to the availability of funds from local people.
"The Moorsyde group have been asking members to sell things on eBay, which really shows how desperate the situation is," he said.
To help raise funds for SOUL, a number of events have been organised, including an evening of birdsong by Geoff Sample, the internationally renowned sound recordist on Friday, February 6, and a silent auction in May.
"These events are small scale fundraisers," said Mr Joicey. "Most of the funds have come from private donations, mainly from local people, many small amounts and some larger ones too."
The Advertiser has also been told that the final decision on the three planning appeals will be taken by Government ministers, not the planning inspector leading the inquiry, a fact confirmed by the department when approached.
In most cases, planning appeals are decided by the planning inspector, although it is formally said that the Secretary of State makes the decision, but some are 'recovered' by the Secretary of State for determination.
In June last year, the range of reasons for 'recovering' an application was extended to include "proposals of major significance for the delivery of the Government's climate change programme and energy policies."
It is believed that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has 'recovered' the decision on the three wind farm appeals on this basis.
Mr Joicey said: "I am very concerned that this will be a political decision, rather than based on the facts.
"It is truly hard to convey the scale of the local effort that has been put into objecting to these proposals over several years on valid planning grounds. Has this all been a fruitless waste of time and resources if the decision is not going to be made on planning grounds, but rather on political grounds?"
Sir Alan Beith, who has tabled a Parliamentary question on this matter, told the Advertiser: "People who are recognised participants in the planning process, with strong views on all sides, do not appear to have been told about the change in the way these applications will be determined. It is totally unreasonable that this change should have come to light only by chance."
Mr Joicey believes that the opposition groups will fight the inquiry based on: "The inappropriate scale of development given the character and appearance of surrounding area, and the fact that the benefits do not outweigh the various 'dis-benefits', to quote planning jargon.
"The benefits can be shown to be greatly smaller than put forward by the developers," Mr Joicey said.
"The biggest myth of all time is that somehow renewable energy is going to be cheap - it's actually going to lead to vast increases in all our energy bills."
This has been backed up by a recent House of Lords committee report on 'The Economics of Renewable Energy', which was critical of the reliability of the electricity generation of wind turbines and the costs involved for consumers.
Lord Vallance, chairman of the economic affairs committee, said: "The UK is most likely to adopt wind power as its main means of producing more renewable energy. This has an inherent weakness in that it cannot be relied upon to generate electricity at the time it is needed."
He added: "Much more research needs to go into more effective and economical forms of renewable energy, and into electrical storage technologies which could mitigate the inherent problems associated with intermittent supply."
The committee raised concerns about the possible knock-on effect the push towards reaching European Union targets of 15 per cent renewable energy supply by 2020 could have on annual fuel bills. It estimated that the increased cost of renewable supplies to the levels required could push household bills up by £80 in 2020.
In representation to the standing committee, National Grid, which operates the electricity system, said that if renewables provided 40 per cent of electricity generation, back-up supplies would need to be increased by 300 per cent, adding between £500m to £1bn to the cost of holding such reserves.
The 'Birdsong of Barmoor and Beyond' event on Friday, February 6 takes place at Lady Waterford Hall, Ford at 7pm. Tickets, costing £8 for adults and £4 for children includes supper, with all proceeds going to SOUL. Tickets are available from The Flower Room, Hide Hill, Berwick, Lowick Corner Shop and Essence of Beauty, Wooler

Jan.26th,The Journal

CAMPAIGNERS have called for the Government to safeguard North East beauty spots as The Journal reveals hundreds of wind turbines could blight the region. Our wind map reveals nearly 250 turbines could pepper the North East landscape in the next year if planning chiefs give them the go-ahead.

Information provided by the region’s councils indicates an influx of turbines could begin to dominate the landscape within a few years.
A total of 64 turbines have already been approved at sites across the North East including a controversial application in Alnwick.Meanwhile in Tynedale there are currently 74 turbines being scoped for erection by major energy companies. These include 14 turbines at Kirkharle, 14 at Throckrington, and 24 in Plenmeller, all near Hexham in Northumberland.

In one of few positive announcements for tourism groups fighting the spread of turbines, the North East Assembly has decided to carry out another study into the cumulative impact of wind farms in Durham. But the Government has reiterated its commitment to produce 15% of the UK’s energy supply from renewable sources, including wind power, by 2020.

Last night Peter Atkinson, Conservative MP for Hexham, said it was unacceptable that the region should become a hotspot for wind farm developments. He said: "The planning applications for wind turbines for the North East has turned into anarchy. Wind energy companies have realised there is a lottery, meaning they put in as many applications as they can to see which ones are the lucky ones.

"We must not simply accept that our region is a haven for wind turbines. When they (Government planners) drew the map they decided large parts of Northumberland were suitable for wind turbines. But we need to look at the cumulative affect that more than one wind turbine has on our landscape during the planning process.

"We need energy supplies that are reliable for seven days a week and 365 days a year, and wind turbines are not that reliable – building a nuclear power station would help. There is a need to value our landscape and tourism is becoming an increasingly important part of the region’s economy which will be hit by more wind farm developments."

The Department for Communities and Local Government said ministers believed local councils were best placed to make decisions regarding wind farms, with controversial applications assessed by the national planning inspectorate if necessary.

But Ruth McNeely, the chairwoman of the North Northumberland Tourism Association, said the increasing number of turbines threatened to destroy the landscape. She said: "We are all in favour of creating alternative sources of power, but not at the expense of our beautiful landscapes. Our concern is that the landscapes would be destroyed as a result of these turbines. It’s an issue about where they are situated and about how the consultation takes place.

"Areas of North Northumberland are areas of unspoilt beauty and that is one of the big tourist attractions. Turbines have the potential to spoil that."

The protester
CAMPAIGNER Andrew Joicey knows better than most the effort it takes to resist wind turbine applications in rural communities.
The Northumberland farmer is a member of the Save our Unspoilt Landscape, which was set up to oppose an application for turbines in Barmoor.
For two years the group fought to have applications rejected for six turbines in Barmoor, along with seven in Moorsyde and seven in Toft Hill, all in Northumberland.
And, in March last year councillors rejected the three proposals for wind farms.
However, appeals have already been lodged on Catamount Energy’s six-turbine Barmoor proposal and Your Energy’s six-turbine Moorsyde scheme.
Last night Mr Joicey urged others to fight turbine applications. He said: "I’m very alarmed by the situation. I’m not completely against wind farms but they are being applied for in inappropriate areas.
"I don’t think people realise the scale of these turbines. Some are 125m high, the size of a 32-storey building.
"In the rural countryside you wouldn’t get any other applications for another building. That would contravene most planning permission rules and it would defy common sense.
"The general public have been brainwashed to think that wind turbines are the only way we can provide power and that’s not true."
He said large Government subsidies available to developers of renewable projects are the reason why applicants are keen to appeal when refused permission.

The tactics
PLANNERS are hoping to reverse a "policy gap" in which wind turbines have been allowed to spread across the region because authorities have not considered their combined impact.
The region’s biggest planning document, known as the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS), cleared the way for turbines to be built in locations across the North East.
But when council planning committees consider a developer’s turbine application they have so far only considered the individual impact.
This has meant many turbines been approved despite wind farms already existing just yards away. Now the North East Assembly is hoping to change this by carrying out another "cumulative impact assessment" in which planners will be warned of the damage done to the landscape by the combined effect of turbines.
The Assembly has already looked at the East of Durham and issued a document which councillors can now cite as evidence of why an individual application should be turned down because of its overall impact.
Assembly planners have also previously issued a warning for Northumberland councils following a study which revealed the "gentle hills of Northumberland" cannot accommodate the number of turbines originally planned for the region.
Although the studies have yet to be acted on councillors believe they are the first step towards a legally-backed defence against the spread of turbines.
Durham’s new council bosses have decided to take part in the latest North East Assembly £35,000 study into the spread of the turbines.
Experts hope to find out how much scope there is for further turbines in Durham, and which parts should be considered off limits.

Opponents pile up war chest for major inquiry

Jan 9th, The Telegraph "Wind energy supply dips during cold snap"                                            Britain's wind farms have stopped working during the cold snap due to lack of wind, it has emerged, as scientists claimed half the world's energy could soon be from renewables.        

Home wind turbines are significantly underperforming and in the worst cases generating less than the electricity needed to power a single lightbulb, according to the biggest study of its kind carried out in Britain.

An interim report revealed that homeowners could be being misled by the official figures for wind speeds because they are consistently overestimating how much wind there is - sometimes finding that real speeds are only one third of those forecast. In the worst case scenario, the figures indicate that it would take more than 15 years to generate enough 'clean' energy to compensate for the manufacture of the turbine in the first place.

The study, supported by government and the British Wind Energy Association on behalf of the industry, is a setback for hopes of a big uptake in micro-wind turbines to help slash the carbon emissions from big power generation.

But the environmental consultancy running the project, Encraft, said there was noticeable disparity between poor results in urban and suburban areas - such as the west London area where Conservative leader David Cameron hopes to put up a turbine - and far better ones in high-rise and coastal locations.

Other research, however, shows that seven out of 10 people say seeing turbines reminds them to save energy, said Matthew Rhodes, Encraft's managing director. 'There is no doubt that microgeneration as a whole has a critical role to play in delivering a low carbon and secure energy future for the UK.

'Micro wind turbines are part of this mix, but they need to be installed in a responsible and appropriate manner.'

The association said technology and predictions of wind speeds were improving, but turbines should not be written off in built-up areas. 'Consumers need to exercise common sense: these will be more effective where it's most windy,' added Charles Anglin, its communications director.

Encraft, based in Warwickshire, launched the trial in 2006 and is now monitoring speeds and power generation at five rural, eight suburban and 11 urban sites, including six on blocks of flats. Most trial sites only began working last year, but the results of nearly 64,000 operating hours 'reasonably indicate' their performance, said Rhodes.

Results from 15 sites show only three generated more than 400 watt-hours of electricity a day; two at 875wh and the single site which reached 1,790wh.

Windspeed indicators confirmed that the official data used to assess how good a site is for a wind turbine are too high: wind speeds were one third to two thirds of what was forecast, said Rhodes.

The trial will add to pressure for tougher standards for installing micro-turbines, said Rhodes. Greenpeace and the Conservatives said 'feed-in tariffs' which allow homeowners to sell spare electricity to the national grid to help repay their costs would ensure that people opted for the best technology, which also includes solar panels and ground source heat pumps.

The average national windspeed is 5.6 metres per second, compared to a recommended 4-5m/s minimum for a micro-turbine.

Dec 20th, The Telegraph "Gordon Brown puffs the great wind scam"                                                                   

Nov 30th, Northumberland gazette "Turbine Proposals revealed"                                        

Nov 26th "Wind Project hits a hurdle in Scotland"

 On the Isle of Lewis, a blustery wedge of highland and bog at the northern tip of the Outer Scottish Hebrides, a battle over a planned wind farm holds lessons for investors and industrialists seeking to meet alternative energy targets for Europe.                   

Nov 12th The Journal "Couple rally opposition to wind farm"

ANOTHER Northumberland community is gearing up to fight a proposed wind farm. People living in the area around West Ancroft, near Berwick, are banding together to oppose plans from E.on Climate and Renewables to put up eight 125m turbines.             The company has been carrying out scoping work for a year and says it is still some way off submitting a planning application.
Nevertheless, local people have already begun to rally in opposition.
Retired couple Ian and Joy Corsie, 65 and 66 respectively, of The Shieling, Allerdean Greens, have been distributing leaflets setting out what they know of the proposal to the 170 homes they say are within two miles of the proposed wind farm.
A public meeting is planned and a campaign group is likely to be set up to fight the plans.
The couple live in one of three homes which will be most affected by the proposal.
The nearest structure would be 650 yards from their property and all the turbines would be within just over a mile of their home.
A band of the structures would disrupt their unspoilt views of the Cheviot Hills. Their view extends all the way to Holy Island.
Mr Corsie said: “The concerns are this is too close to far too many buildings – in particular it is far too close to us.
“It affects us more than anyone else because the main bulk of them will be directly south of us.
“It is just outrageous that they should want to put such monster industrial turbines in the middle of a very agricultural landscape, a very settled landscape as you cast your eye over it.
“The reaction as we have gone around delivering our information, hardly anyone knew about it and most of them are absolutely horrified.”
As well as the West Ancroft proposal, the Corsies live just a mile and a half from Moorsyde, where developer Your Energy is seeking to erect seven 110m turbines. Berwick Borough Council refused the company’s planning application last March, but an appeal was submitted and a public inquiry is to take place next year.
Mr Corsie said the two proposals would appear as one from his home if both were approved.
“There would be a solid wheel of whirling blades, whirling wheels.”
A spokesman for E.on last night said an environmental impact assessment was being carried out to consider issues such as noise and impact on wildlife and archaeological sites.

Oct 25th, The Journal, "Turbine deadline threat; Wind farms to go before new quango"

Oct 21st The Telegraph "North-east England could become wind power capital city"

The north-east of England should become the 'capital city' of the UK's booming wind industry, experts have said. It would act as a magnet for industry, investment and skills in the same way that Aberdeen did for the North Sea oil industry.
Wind turbines: BWEA say the north-east would be a natural choice because it was on the edge of the North Sea where most of the offshore wind farms will be sited.


Wind turbines: The north-east is where most of the offshore wind farms will be sited

             and

Oct 19th, The Guardian, "UK wind farm plans on brink of failure"

Last week Britain committed itself to cutting greenhouse gases by 80 per cent. This week Gordon Brown will claim the UK is now a world leader in wind power. An Observer investigation reveals his hopes could be blown wildly off course.

Oct 18th, The Journal, "Turbine Protesters fear deluge of bids"

Oct 17th, Journal, "£200,000 bill for inquiry "experts"

Sept 14th, Sunday Telegraph, "Expensive and inefficient: the wind farm verdict"

Unprofitable turbines rely on hefty subsidies that are paid for by cash-strapped customers in the form of rising bills, says report.
Wind farms are failing to deliver value for money and distorting the development of other renewable energy sources. Excessive subsidies make them an expensive and inefficient way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a study by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) think-tank says.  The report comes amid mounting disquiet over the number of wind farms planned for Britain.
Energy companies want to erect more than 3,000 turbines over the next five years, leading to fears that hundreds of acres of rural landscape will be blighted.
Critics insist that wind energy is too inefficient to replace the creaking network of fossil fuel power stations. Even with modern turbines, wind farms are unable to operate at full capacity because of the unreliable nature of Britain's wind.

The industry admits that for up to 30 per cent of the time, turbines are idle because wind speeds are either too low to turn the blades, or too high, risking damage to the machines.

Without any suitable method of storing the excess power produced when winds are blowing but electricity use is low, many turbines also have to be turned off for fear of overloading the grid.

The report says that wind farms are unprofitable and rely on hefty subsidies that ultimately come from consumers in the form of rising energy prices. This cost comes on top of increases in gas and electricity prices caused by the high price of oil. They risk leaving the poorest members of society struggling to heat their homes.

The report, written by John Constable, of REF, and Robert Barfoot, the chairman of the North Devon branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, says that the subsidy scheme is encouraging energy firms to build as many wind farms as possible because it is more profitable than investing in other more expensive forms of renewable technology, such as wave power.

They say: "The market for renewable energy is an artificial one created and maintained by government legislation. The question is whether this consumer-derived money is well spent. It is worth noting that the excessive subsidy offered to onshore wind development has drawn developers even to sites where the wind resource is very weak and the environmental impact severe."

Backed by large subsidies, companies have put in planning applications for 235 wind farms. The plans would see 3,189 turbines, many more than 400ft tall, installed by 2013. At present, there are 176 wind farms operating 2,033 turbines onshore and at sea, providing power for the equivalent of 1.42 million homes.

In 2006-07 more than £217 million was paid to energy firms under the subsidy scheme, known as the Renewables Obligation. Under the scheme, energy companies must obtain a proportion of their power from renewable sources, 6.7 per cent at present rising to 15 per cent by 2015. Those that fail to meet these targets pay a fine that is then shared between all the companies that have obtained energy from "green" sources. For every megawatt of green energy they sell, a company receives about £50 at present.

The Renewable Energy Foundation says that consumers ultimately end up funding the subsidies because energy firms that pay fines pass the costs on to customers.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England, which campaigns against the building of wind farms, attacked the rapid growth in the number being constructed.

A CPRE spokesman said: "There is a role for wind energy in providing electricity in the UK, but its intermittency and major visual impact limit the potential contribution of onshore turbines."

Other critics claim that wind farms pose a risk to wildlife such as birds and bats.

A spokesman for the British Wind Energy Association, which represents the wind power industry, defended the Renewable Obligation payments, claiming that they were necessary to help provide energy security. He said: "The question is whether we want to pay moderately higher prices to secure a secure and clean domestic energy source, or do we want to be dependent on imported fossil fuels?"

Critics have estimated that by 2020 the cost of the Renewables Obligation could rise to more than £3 billion.

The Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is reassessing the Renewables Obligation scheme. Proposed changes could mean that bands are introduced for different sources of renewable energy.

Windfarms: One of the great deceptions of our time

The total power generated by all the 2,300 turbines so far built in Britain, is less than that contributed by a single medium-size conventional power station.

I long had no particular views on wind farms one way or the other. But six years ago, when I first seriously looked at what they actually contribute to our energy needs and our environment, I had a profound shock. It was clear that the craze for wind energy had become one of the greatest self-deceptions of our time.

Far from being “free”, wind is one of the most expensive ways of generating electricity yet devised. Without an almost 100 per cent subsidy, unwittingly paid by all of us through our electricity bills, no one would dream of building giant wind turbines in Britain, because their cost is not remotely competitive.

Turbines are hopelessly ineffectual. The amount of electricity they deliver is derisory. The total power generated by all the 2,300 turbines so far built in Britain — covering hundreds of square miles of countryside and sea — averages just over 600 megawatts in a year, less than that contributed by a single medium-size conventional power station.

Most serious of all, however, is the fact that wind energy is hopelessly unreliable, for the simple reason that wind speeds are not only constantly changing but wholly unpredictable. One minute a turbine may be whizzing round, generating at full capacity; the next the wind drops and the turbine is contributing only a fraction of its capacity or nothing at all.

To keep electricity supplies going, the grid must have permanently available alternative conventional power sources equivalent to the maximum capacity of the wind turbines, ready to step in when the wind stops. This in itself is hugely inefficient, adding greatly to costs and, as they have discovered on the Continent, threatening to destabilise the grid or bring it to a halt when wind speeds change dramatically.

The best-kept secret of the wind industry, however, which continues to fool both politicians and the media, is its trick of referring only to the contribution of windmills in terms of their “installed capacity”, as if that is what they will actually deliver. They talk about a “16 megawatt” wind farm “powering x thousand homes” as if that is the contribution it will make to our electricity needs. Yet in reality, thanks to the intermittency of the wind, a turbine will on average produce through the year only a quarter of its capacity.

The success of this deception means that politicians almost invariably exaggerate the potential benefits of wind power by a factor of four. And of course the other great trick is to conceal the fact that all this must be paid for by that huge hidden subsidy.

The real danger of the “great wind scam” is that it takes the eyes of politicians off the real energy crisis fast approaching us, so that we are not building the proper power stations we need to keep our lights on. That is why it will one day be looked back on as having been one of the most incomprehensible blunders of our age.
By Christopher Booker

EDITORIAL Wind farms, hot air and spin

As we report today, an investigation by the Renewable Energy Foundation casts doubt on the idea that wind turbines are the solution to the problem of how to generate Britain's electricity in a reliable but "clean" way.

That a substantial portion of Britain's energy needs can be generated by wind turbines is now the received wisdom. So much so, indeed, that in order to ensure that wind turbines are built, the Government - which is to say, every taxpayer - subsidises the cost of the electricity that wind turbines produce to the tune of almost 100 per cent.

There is, however, one major problem with wind power: wind. Because the wind does not blow reliably or constantly, there are inevitably long periods when it is not strong enough to generate electricity. It means that wind turbines cannot solve Britain's energy needs, for there is no way to store the electricity produced when high winds are blowing so that it can be used when they are not.

Christopher Booker has been pointing this out in his column in The Sunday Telegraph for years. His refusal to believe in the fads and fashions of environmentalism has often turned out to be correct. His conviction that "biofuels" would fail to provide an alternative to traditional transport fuels has been vindicated: the only significant effect of the cultivation of biofuels has been increased hunger in the developing world.

Mr Booker now predicts that the decision to subsidise wind power "will one day be looked back on as having been one of the most incomprehensible blunders of our age". Whether or not that prediction is fulfilled, he is surely right to point out that we face an enormous energy shortfall, which wind power cannot fill.

At the moment, nuclear energy is the most realistic option for meeting our long-term energy needs. The sooner new nuclear power stations are built, the better.

Sept 6th, The Journal, "Planners change their minds on turbines"

COUNCILLORS have withdrawn three of their four objections to plans for a wind farm in Northumberland.
Members of Berwick Borough Council Planning Committee have unanimously agreed to amend their views on a proposal to erect turbines at Wandylaw, near Chathill, after the release of the Regional Spatial Strategy, drawn up by the North East Assembly to set out future land use.
One objection remains – about the effect of turbines on the air defence radar at RAF Brizlee Wood, Alnwick.
RidgeWind Ltd wants to build 10 turbines at Wandylaw.
The council refused the application last October by eight votes to two on the basis it would harm the landscape and tourism and because of Ministry of Defence concern about Brizlee Wood. An appeal was submitted and a public inquiry is to open in Berwick on September 16.
But at a committee meeting in Berwick on Thursday, members were advised by barrister Colin Crawford that three of their original reasons for refusing the planning application had been weakened by changes to the spatial strategy document.
The Secretary of State’s recent decision to allow a wind farm to go ahead at Middlemoor, near the Wandylaw site, also prompted members to reconsider. Their original reasons for the refusal, now dropped, were: the impact the development would have on the character of the landscape; its visual and cumulative impact in the area, including the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Northumberland National Park, and the adverse effect it would have on tourism and the local economy.
Very similar objections were considered at the Middlemoor inquiry and discounted by the inspector.
Members agreed to maintain their objection to the effects on radar, but said the council could not provide evidence on that and the MoD would have to make the case at the inquiry.
Coun Richard Patterson, who chaired the planning committee meeting, said “This was a very difficult decision for members to make.
“When we made our original decision to refuse the Wandylaw application last October, we thought that we had a very strong case.
“However, this has now changed, particularly now that we have the finalised regional spatial strategy and also the Secretary of State’s decision on the Midddlemoor inquiry.
“We have therefore had to concede that there is now no point in the council being represented as a formal objector at the forthcoming public inquiry.”
North Northumberland representative for The Campaign to Protect Rural England, Dominic Coupe, said: “Certainly more than one member used the word ‘reluctantly’ while voting to lose those three objections.
“It would be my gut feeling that they don’t want it. They have been backed into a corner by the recently issued regional spatial strategy.
“You would end up with 28 turbines on a relatively small patch of ground wedged between the area of national beauty and the national park. The landscape would be dominated by huge industrial structures taller than any structure between London and Edinburgh.”

Aug 10, The Journal, Wind farm wins guarded go-ahead, But turbines must not disrupt radar

PLANS for a major wind farm in Northumberland were approved by the Government yesterday. npower renewables’ proposal to erect 18 turbines, 125m high, at Middlemoor, North Charlton, near Alnwick, was given the go-ahead by Energy Secretary John Hutton.
But the wind farm cannot be erected until the energy giant comes up with a way to make sure the turbines do not affect RAF radar systems.
This follows an objection to the scheme from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), on the basis that the structures would interfere with the air defence radar at nearby Brizlee Wood national security.
npower renewables has been given five years to come up with a solution which must be cleared by the Secretary of State for Defence.
Last night, the company welcomed the approval and was confident of finding a solution to the defence issue. Clare Wilson, its regional development manager, said: “We are very pleased as a company. Obviously it goes a way towards the Government’s renewable targets and our own renewable targets. “We are now looking forward to working with the MoD to try and find a mitigation or a solution.” The MoD said it is committed to working with npower renewables.
A spokesman said: “Air defence radar is essential to the defence of the country.
“We will need to be satisfied that the impact of any proposed wind farm does not compromise our national security.
“The MoD is committed to Government targets for renewable energy and whenever possible we seek to work with wind farm developers to find a mutually acceptable solution.”
Yet at a recent pre-inquiry meeting on proposals for turbines at a site near Middlemoor, Government planning inspector David Cullingford said developers given similar conditional approvals elsewhere in Britain have yet to find a way to mitigate the effect of turbines on air defence radars.
Last night, Nick Blezard, chairman of the Save Northumberland’s Environment (SANE) group which opposed the Middlemoor project, said the Government’s approval was effectively a refusal given the difficulties of finding ways round the radar issue.
He said: “This wind farm is not approved. They cannot do anything with it until they have sorted out the Brizlee radar problem. “This is the government spinning.”

Journal editorial comment : GIVEN the Government’s determination to cover the countryside in wind farms, it is to be hoped the confidence of protesters over a huge site in Northumberland is justified.
Energy secretary John Hutton yesterday gave the go-ahead to plans to build eighteen 125-metre high turbines, at Middlemoor, near Alnwick.
But it cannot be built until energy giant npower comes up with a way of preventing the turbines interfering with RAF radar systems.
Nick Blezard – chairman of the Save Northumberland’s Environment, which opposed the project – says this is effectively a refusal given the radar issue.
We can only hope he is right and that the Government – reluctant to admit defeat – is spinning Middlemoor as a “go-ahead” knowing that the radar caveat will halt the project.
That said, the Ministry of Defence is, obviously, run by the Government.

Some may find the willingness of both the MoD and energy company to work together on this problem something of a concern.
And with a group of politicians in the background who are seemingly desperate to erect hundreds of these huge monuments to their Green credentials, who would blame them?
They have already rigged the planning system in favour of wind farms and constantly overplayed the contribution they will make.
Is it any wonder people will raise an eyebrow if some modification to either the RAF’s radar or the design of these turbines suddenly makes Middlemoor viable?

July 30, The Times "Wind farm a blot on Scottish greenness, says Bellamy"

David Bellamy has described the wind farm decision as ’baffling’

David Bellamy, the broadcaster and environmentalist, has lambasted the Scottish government's “baffling” decision to approve the construction of the huge Clyde wind farm in South Lanarkshire, describing the project as “an enormous blot on the credibility of Scotland as a green place”.

His comments are a stark contrast to those of Alex Salmond, the First Minister, who last week announced the scheme as a step on the road to making Scotland the “green capital” of Europe. A total of 152 turbines are to be installed in clusters in the South Lanarkshire hill near the village of Abington, close to the M74.

Dr Bellamy represents an increasingly vocal minority within a green lobby that has been largely supportive of wind power. He is deeply critical, attacking both its reliability and its impact on the environment. Some critics of wind farms even blame their fluctuating output for a widespread power failure in East Anglia in May, and for a massive blackout across Germany and parts of France in November 2006.

“These things produce a very wobbly amount of energy - they have to be backed up all the time by gas or coal to make sure that we have grid security,” Dr Bellamy said.

A decision by the Holyrood administration in January, to block plans for a wind farm on the Isle of Lewis, had delighted him. “That was about impugning the sanctity of a very important natural area, and a great hub of tourism. I had an extra glass of red wine after that announcement. But this decision is simply baffling,” Dr Bellamy said.
Supporters of the Abington scheme say that it will bring £600 million in investment and create 200 construction jobs when it goes on site next year. Since it stands alongside a motorway, one argument in the development's favour is based on the notion that this rural area has already been “industrialised”.

The project has bitterly divided the local community, where it is supported by some landowners who stand to benefit from rents, but opposed by others who believe that the turbines will ruin the view.

Opponents are appalled by the size of the turbines, which stand 300ft (91m) high and have blades the length of a jumbo jet's wing. To make matters worse, Dr Bellamy said, the installation of these turbines could be contemplated by power generation companies only because of massive subsidies that are ultimately funded by consumers. In that regard, he welcomed a report by the House of Commons Business and Enterprise Committee, which this week called for a windfall tax on energy companies that are said to have profited from the EU trading scheme for carbon emissions.

He said: “If these hidden subsidies were taken away, there would not be a single wind turbine built in Britain. It costs a lot of money to build a wind farm - and it's the offshore people who fund it. Scotland is one the most amazing bits of Europe, and it hasn't been buggered up yet.”

David Mundell, the Conservative MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, echoed Dr Bellamy's comments and criticised the project as “an abomination”.

David Bruce, of the Scottish Wind Assessment Project, who grew up near Abington, said that the development was a disaster for the local environment. He said: “The Lewis site was heavily designated under European law for its wildlife. Abington is in South Lanarkshire and the countryside there is a forgotten jewel. It is not designated, so there is an open season for industrialisation. It should not be thrown away on a whim.”
Some environmental groups, including the WWF, have backed the Clyde wind farm. A spokesman for the Scottish government said that it represented an important step in the development of renewable energy in Scotland and in meeting European targets.
“It is another step towards making Scotland the green energy capital of Europe,” he added.
“All forms of renewable energy - including onshore wind energy projects such as this - will have a crucial role to play in realising Scotland's vast green energy potential and cutting the harmful emissions that cause climate change.”

July 30th, The Scotsman, "Windfarm gets £22m of extra turbines"

EAST Lothian's Crystal Rig windfarm is to undergo a £22 million expansion, First Minister Alex Salmond has announced. Nine extra wind turbines will be built at the site near Dunbar and the extra capacity will be enough to power more than 13,000 homes. Mr Salmond said the development, together with others recently announced, meant it was "virtually certain" that Scotland would now meet its target of generating 31 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2011. He announced the Crystal Rig expansion during his visit to the headquarters of wind farm operators Natural Power in Dumfries and Galloway.
He said: "Natural Power is a growing, thriving company, with more than 14,000 megawatts of renewable energy projects on its books. It is an important contributor to Scotland's renewable energy sector and I am delighted to be able to announce this further expansion of the hugely significant Crystal Rig wind farm."
Crystal Rig wind farm was granted consent by Scottish Borders Council in June 2002 and and has expanded in phases to the current 77 turbines.
The nine new turbines will have a capacity of 27 megawatts, taking the total to almost 180 megawatts.

July 26th, The Journal, "Search for war chest to fight wind farms"

July 16th, The Journal, "Licence for many more turbines"

July 10th, The Journal "Second wind farm appeal is lodged"

A SECOND appeal has been lodged following the refusal of three wind farm applications near a Northumberland town.
Separate bids for turbines at Barmoor, Moorsyde and Toft Hill, all near Berwick, were refused by local planners at a joint hearing in March.
The Journal reported last week how the applicants for the Barmoor scheme had appealed and that a public inquiry will take place before a Government planning inspector.
Last night it emerged that Your Energy, the company seeking to erect seven turbines at Moorsyde, has also appealed. Moorsyde Action Group, which was set up to oppose the application, last night vowed to continue to fight the scheme.
A spokesman said: “We are surprised that Your Energy are continuing with their existing application rather than addressing the serious defects which led to its decisive rejection by local councillors.
“The costs of this scheme to local communities and our tourist industry have hardly reduced.
“We are confident that the decision of our local councillors to reject the Moorsyde scheme on sound planning grounds will be vindicated when the scheme’s inadequacies are examined at a public inquiry.”
The Moorsyde application was refused by Berwick Borough Council’s planning committee by eight votes to one with councillors taking the view its impact on the surrounding landscape could not be mitigated.
At the same meeting, Catamount Energy’s six turbine Barmoor project was also refused, by the same margin, as was npower renewables’ seven turbine Toft Hill proposal, with eight voting against and one abstention.
The two appealed projects had both been recommended for approval with the Toft Hill scheme listed for refusal.
After the hearing, Catamount stated it would be appealing and npower said it was considering its options, with Your Energy declining to comment.
It has been widely anticipated all three will be challenged and The Journal was told last week that an appeal on the Toft Hill scheme is to come.
The appeals could mean Berwick taxpayers having to pick up bills running into hundreds of thousands of pounds in staging one or more inquiries and hiring barristers and planning experts to make the council’s case.
And if the authority loses and the planning inspector rules it acted unreasonably in refusing in the first place, it could also be asked to pay some or all of the developers’ costs.
Berwick Council is already facing a public inquiry in September following its refusal of Ridgewind’s application for 10 turbines at Wandylaw, near Chathill.
Your Energy declined to comment yesterday other than to confirm that it has lodged an appeal.

June 27th, The Guardian "Rising bills will pay for low-carbon economy"

Household gas bills could rise by up to 37% and electricity costs by 13% as the government lines up consumers to pay for a green revolution that would move Britain from oil dependence to a low carbon economy.
A renewable energy strategy outlined by ministers yesterday signalled that energy bills could soar by hundreds of pounds, and could push over 2 million extra people into fuel poverty.
John Hutton, the industry secretary, said proceeding with business as usual was not an option in the face of climate change, and added that the price of change was "really quite modest". But he promised special measures to ensure the poorest sections of the community were not hit hardest: "We have got to provide help, if we can, to low-income families particularly those with children, to meet the rising cost of energy."

Surcharges on gas and electricity are expected to reach a peak in 2020 under the government plans, as consumers help pay for £100bn investment by the private sector in wind turbines and solar panels, in an attempt to meet EU targets of producing 15% of all UK energy from renewable sources. The first government estimates of the cost to the consumer are published at a time when British Gas customers could face price rises of a further 30-40% later this summer as a result of a steep increase in wholesale gas costs.
Energywatch, the consumer group, said that every 1% increase in power bills brought 40,000 people into fuel poverty, defined as those who spend more than 10% of their income on lighting and heating. The current number is 4.5 million.

"We are very worried about the impact of this [renewable strategy]," said Patricia Ockenden, a spokeswoman for energywatch. "Most of our work is already focused on the fuel poor and the existing cost of energy for the wider population."
Friends of the Earth supported the government's drive to use far more renewable power, but said loading the cost onto the consumer was misguided. "It is politically stupid and socially incompetent to proceed down this path. The government needs a quantum leap in energy efficiency to show there is no contradiction between more renewables and tackling fuel poverty," said campaigner Dave Timms                                          

June 26th, The Telegraph, "7000 Wind turbines to transform the British Landscape"

June 26th, The Guardian "Hutton tells power grid to clear barriers to wind"

The government will today take a bold step it believes will remove the biggest single barrier to renewable energy: access to the National Grid.

Today, wind farms can wait 10 years or more to supply homes and businesses. To end this, ministers have told the high-voltage network to start building connections before formal financial commitments from users. The operating company, National Grid plc, confirmed it had agreed to start "sharing" of transmission lines so electricity from wind could use them when needed, handing back capacity to conventional power when the blades are not turning.
The government also plans to change the remit of the regulator, Ofgem, so it puts more emphasis on low carbon schemes to use the 10GW of green power stuck at various stages of development.

The planning process will be also speeded up, and the Ministry of Defence has been told to drop objections over alleged radar interference from turbines. 

June 23rd, Government response to Downing Street anti-wind petition                                            

June 23rd, Daily Mail, "Ministers want a new wind turbine built every day for 12 years to meet EU green targets"    

June 22nd, The Telegraph "Wind power comes to my Back Yard"

Towering over a hilltop near where I live on the Mendips, in Somerset, is a shiny, new 330ft wind turbine - a perfect symbol of the greatest political unreality confronting Britain today.
The sole reason that a Government inspector insisted it should be built, overriding all normal planning rules and a unanimous vote by our local council, was that within 12 years, Britain is obliged by the EU to generate nearly two fifths of its electricity from "renewables", most of it from 20,000 wind turbines like this.
There is not the remotest chance of this target being met.

The unreality of our energy policy is now such that the Government talks about building 10,000 giant turbines offshore - at a rate of more than two a day - when it knows that neither the technical nor practical resources exist to achieve more than a tiny fraction of that figure.

Furthermore, as was recently admitted by Paul Golby, the chief executive of E.ON, one of our leading energy companies, even if we could build all those turbines, we would have to build dozens of conventional power stations to provide 90 per cent back-up for when the wind is not blowing.

And yet, by 2015, we stand to lose more than a quarter of our existing generating capacity from the closure of 16 nuclear and coal-fired power plants through a combination of obsolescence and EU anti-pollution laws.

Far from the drive for wind energy adding to our existing capacity of 76 gigawatts (GW), Mr Golby explained, we should have to enlarge our capacity to 120GW, costing hundreds of billions of pounds.

Just as we are threatened with massive power cuts from the closure of existing plants, we would thus have to build 50GW of nuclear or fossil-fuel capacity to compensate for the wind's unreliability.

We are threatened with a truly massive disaster.

I have spoken before of "the great wind scam", and how its only beneficiaries are the developers, who now make nearly twice as much money from the derisory amount of electricity their turbines produce as the companies that provide 99 per cent of our power by conventional means.

For each megawatt of capacity, a windfarm developer gets on average £130,000 a year from selling his electricity to the grid, plus another £109,000 a year in subsidy paid by the rest of us in higher electricity bills under the Government's "renewable obligation" scheme.

Meanwhile, up and down the country, scores of local campaigns battle to save our land from disfigurement by these monstrous machines that have no useful purpose.

The campaigners soon discover how ruthlessly the Government has rigged the planning system in the wind industry's favour, in obedience to wholly fanciful EU targets.

The saddest thing of all, as we plunge towards this Government-engineered disaster, is that, if we look to the Opposition to save us by grasping the hard facts, we find it is as much in the grip of the madness as the Government itself.

As I have said before, stand by for the lights to go out - quite possibly when we have a Conservative government, which will not have a clue where to turn.

June 21, The Guardian "Wind power to drive green revolution"                                                       

June 2nd, "Who'll solve the wind turbine supply crisis?"

Explosive growth in the demand for wind power has created a global waiting list for wind turbines. Chinese turbine companies may be part of the solution as they ramp up production and get ready to export. 

Fossil-fuelled power ‘can be just as clean and friendly’

MILITARY concerns could force a radical rethink of the region’s wind capacity, the North’s top planner has admitted. When Government planning inspectors rule on whether or not to allow 59 wind turbines over three Tynedale sites, their decision will be felt across the region, especially in Northumberland.
Officers at the North East Assembly (NEA) tasked with finding the best places to build turbines have previously labeled large parts of the Tyne Valley as acceptable for medium-size wind farms. But an objection by the Ministry of Defence in September meant the Tynedale wind farms were rejected, and the NEA now admits a Northumberland rethink could be on the way. Assembly member and Tynedale Council leader Michael Walton said the mixed messages over wind had resulted in thousands of pounds worth of legal action, and called for new wind targets.
He said: “These areas of least constraint are supposed to exist to give developers a reasonable chance of launching a successful application. “At the moment we are seeing three applications in a Tynedale area of least constraint and we as a council face the expense that comes from fighting the legal battles. “We go through all our own objections only to see the MoD come in at the last minute with a fairly heavy objection that, if we had known about earlier, would have saved a lot of time and money for everyone. “We need real clarity here, because the obvious outcome is if these objections are upheld then this area, and any other parts the RAF don’t like, actually become areas of most constraint. “The impact of that is that Northumberland and the region will not have the wind turbine capacity that we have been led to believe.”
Malcolm Bowes, NEA assistant chief executive, said Mr Walton was quite right when he called for the figures to be looked at again.
If the MoD objection is upheld, planners will have to choose between reducing the number of favoured sites available to developers or allowing more turbines in a limited amount of space across Northumberland.
And the feared worst-case scenario could see the rest of the North East having to bear the brunt as the Government continues pushing European energy targets.

Either way, developers face having to accept defeat and admit the presence of RAF fighter jets rules out large parts of the region to wind developers.
Wind farm opponent John Ferguson, from the Save Our Landscape campaign, has added his voice to those calling for clarity.
“I can see this being a big help for some places, and possibly a help for others.
“Of course it could mean developers just make more bids on a smaller supply of land.
“The decision on the MoD objection will throw everything back into the melting pot and we could see a radical departure from current plans.
“And while it’s clear there will be big changes, it is not yet clear who will miss out and who will gain.”

Malcolm Bowes, NEA deputy chief executive, said: “If this (MoD) objection is upheld, we will need to consider the implications it will have on renewable energy targets for Northumberland as set out in the current regional spatial strategy. We will take the outcomes into account during the preparation of the new strategy.”
The MoD has insisted it considers each application on a case-by-case basis.
But the blind spots can arise even at long distances from radar stations and the MoD is studying all proposed wind farms in the “line of sight” of their monitors. They have not said how far the line of sight can be.

• Also read John Ferguson's report on Climate change 

For the wind turbines, a substation, with transformers from Austria, has been constructed in open country on the outskirts of Skegness. This will need miles of cable, mainly from Norway and Germany, to link everything up and power 140,000 homes.

Feb 4th Financial Times, "Bonanza for old wind farms as bottlenecks hit new turbines"

Feb 4 The Daily Mail "£1bn wind farm subsidies pump up power firm profits

"Wind farm owners insist that ...  without subsidies, no business would invest in wind power."

Inflation-busting increases in electricity prices - which were supposed to pay for a massive expansion of wind power - have boosted the profits of power companies instead, it emerged yesterday.Under a controversial Government scheme, British consumers pay £1billion a year in their fuel bills to subsidise the drive towards renewable energy.The cash is supposed to act as an incentive to companies wanting to build green generators such as wind farms or hydro-electric dams. However, because of a loophole in the system - and the vocal opposition to new turbines in the countryside - the scheme has failed to produce the expected surge in wind power. Instead, most of the money has lined the pockets of energy companies.
Energy experts yesterday warned that the "Renewable Obligation" subsidy system is "hugely flawed" and places a unfair burden on families at a time when household bills are soaring. Last year the energy watchdog Ofgem called for theRenewables Obligation to be scrapped. "It is a very expensive way of providing support for renewables," said regulator Andrew Wright.
Energy expert Peter Atherton, from financial analysts Citi Investment Research, added: "It's a bonanza. Anyone who can get their nose in the trough is trying to."
Under European plans published last month, Britain must produce 40 per cent of its electricity from green sources by 2020. Today it produces less than 5 per cent. To meet the target the UK would need to build around two wind turbines every day for the next 12 years .
To encourage more green energy, the Government launched the Renewables Obligation scheme. Each year, power suppliers must buy a fixed proportion of electricity from green sources. If they fail to meet the target they pay a fine to Government.
That money is then split between the owners of existing wind farms.

The cost of the Renewables Obligation is passed on to consumer in their fuel bills and is rising sharply each year. In 2006 it was £600million. By 2020 it will cost consumers £3billion.
Yet despite the spiralling fuel bills, the amount of green electricity produced in the UK is rising slowly. In 2005 just 4.2 per cent of the UK's electricity was renewable.
In 2006, the last year for which official figures were available, it was 4.6 per cent.
Although the money is being passed on to wind farm owners, lengthy planning delays have held up many wind farms. In 2007 an extra 427 megawatts of wind capacity were built Britain - compared-with 630 in 2006 and 447 in 2005, according to the British Wind Energy Association.
Many of the small wind farmers have been bought up by the major energy companies. RWE Npower is one of the biggest owners of in the UK and is though to make £ 90million a year from wind.
Ministers have pledged to reform the planning system to make it easier for new wind farms to spring up.
"The scheme is designed to encourage investment in renewable energy by making things like wind farms more profitable," said a spokesman for the Department for Business.
"It should come as a surprise that there a cost associated with this. Renewables are more expensive, but they play a key role in tackling climate change."
Wind farm owners insist that their profits are not excessive - and that without subsidies, no business would invest in wind power.
Gordon Edge, of the British Wind Energy Association, said the convoluted planning system was causing the delays.
"It's much more difficult to get planning permission for wind developments than for developments like roads, motorways or other infrastructure," he said.    

Feb 5th Daily Mail "Blowing money on a Fantasy " 

Feb 4th The Times "Wind Farms a threat to national security"                                                                         

Feb 2, The Herald, "Wind farms are destroying our famed scenery."                                                                         

Feb 1, Press and Journal "WINDFARM DEVELOPERS 'DUPE' PUBLIC"

Developers seeking support for windfarm plans often dupe members of the public into believing turbines will save the planet - while failing to mention potentially serious side-effects, according to a new report.
The Views of Scotland (VoS) pressure group believes people often put their names forward in support of developments without fully understanding the technology. The group claims that some developments endanger rare species and natural carbon stores in peatland.
The group argues that modern methods of touting for support for wind over nuclear power amount to "a subversion of the planning system in a gung-ho attempt to secure consent whatever the cost".
The VoS report - Strange bedfellows: Big Energy, Cash and the Green Lobby - claims developers are increasingly recruiting activists including Greenpeace members to back planning applications.
Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr said: "Wind power is one of the best available tools for humanity starting to tackle climate change. " We support most windfarm applications that we scrutinise, but this is not blanket. Greenpeace is almost unique in being funded entirely by individual members and so is totally independent of companies and Government."

VoS chairman David Bruce, however, argued that people "ignorant of serious environmental risks are being persuaded, often unintentionally, to sign letters of support for specific planning applications."
He said the practice "smacks of new age colonialism by people travelling up and down the country seeking to impose their will by decree, regardless of the environmental cost."
He added: "There was a time when Greenpeace fought to expose and put a stop to this kind of oppressive corporate bullying. It did not cover it up and it certainly did not campaign on its behalf. It does now."
Jonathan Lincoln, founder of the Sustainable Energy Alliance, which is also criticised in the report, vehemently denied that he had duped anyone into signing petitions to aid planning applications while shielding wider environmental issues.
He said: "I provide information about a windfarm and discuss it in detail. We provide OS (Ordnance Survey) maps, full details of the application and are as open and honest as we can be, including the impact on the environment and the avian populations, before we decide to back an application."

Jan 27th, The Sunday Times, "Wind farms turn huge profit with help of subsidies"

25th Jan, BBC news "Massive wind farm 'turned down'

       

Plans to build one of Europe's biggest wind farms on the Isle of Lewis are set to be turned down, BBC Scotland understands.

12th Jan, The Journal "Safety Fears as Turbines Toppled"

Journal Letters:  "Will this ‘progress’ turn full circle"    

10 Jan 2008, BBC Newsnight, govt minister " BY 2010 the Renewables Obligation will be getting £1Billion a year in subsidy" To read about ROCs and more info on how these subsidies work see articles below  (e.g. Sept 3 onwards) and bottom of home page 

Berwick Advertiser letters "Turbines unreliable"...........................    

7th Jan, The Telegraph, "Home wind turbines 'too weak' to turn on light.
Wind turbines fitted to people's homes may not even be generating enough electricity to power a light bulb, a major study into wind power has revealed.
The report found that homeowners may be being misled by inaccurate official estimates about how strong winds in their area are, and that they may be up to one third slower than forecast, meaning they generate less electricity than previously thought.
At worst, a wind turbine may take 15 years to generate enough "clean energy" to compensate for its manufacture, according to the study, which is based on the output of 24 sites around the country over 64,000 hours and supported by the Government and the industry body, the British Wind Energy Association.
The news will disappoint David Cameron, who led the trend for "micro-wind" this year when he had a £3,000 green energy generator fitted to the side of his west London home. The turbine later had to be removed, reportedly because the builders had installed it wrongly.
Encraft, an environmental consultancy running the project, said wind power results were worst in urban and suburban areas than in high-rise and costal areas, where wind speeds are higher.

1st Jan, The Times "Land of pointless propellers"

27th Dec, Berwick Advertiser letters "Staggered at the height " and extract of email to SOUL (See article below)

24 Dec, Press Assn.  "Tallest wind turbine planned"

Plans for a wind farm which includes the country's tallest turbine will be given the go-ahead in the New Year, it has been reported.
Councillors in Northumberland look set to give the green light to the seafront development at Blyth Harbour for seven huge turbines, with the largest one measuring 163 metres from base to tip - three times the height of Nelson's Column.
The development would replace the nine existing turbines which stand just 45 metres high and have been operating since 1993, but whose technology has become outdated.
The new, bigger turbines, most of which will stand 125 metres tall, will take the place of the existing windmills which are situated on a pier stretching into the North Sea.
The biggest would be placed near the village of Cambois - to the anger of some local residents.
The wind turbine plans were submitted to Wansbeck Council in July, and according to the Journal newspaper, planning officials are recommending councillors give their approval at a meeting next week.
Forecasts state the development will produce enough power for 11,600 homes, and will cover around 10% of Northumberland's renewable energy target.

13 Dec, The Times, "Did I ever think it would be fun?"

12 Dec, The Journal, "Blimp protest over turbines"

10 Dec, BBC News "Wind could power all UK homes" Up to 7,000 turbines may be installed offshore to boost wind energy 60-fold by 2020.     

8th December, The Independent
The Ministry of Defence have been accused of shooting down Gordon Brown's plans for tackling global warming by opposing wind farms across Britain. The MoD has opposed most of the proposals on the ground that they will interfere with air defence radar, and all have resulted in delays, permission being refused, public inquiries, or in one case the withdrawal of the planning application. The MoD's opposition runs counter to the target set by the Prime Minister for Britain to produce up to 40 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 to combat climate change.
A Commons written answer by the Defence minister Derek Twigg has revealed that the MoD has opposed 28 planning applications for wind farms between 2005 and 2007.
Harry Cohen, the Labour MP, who obtained the answer, said: "It just shows that one hand of the government doesn't know what the other is doing."
Most of the planning cases are still pending. They include Hare Hill in East Ayrshire, where the MoD objected to a wind farm on the ground that it would restrict low-flying training.

Sat 24th New York Times, also International Herald Tribune, "Debating the Merits of Energy From Air"

© Yannis Kolesidis for The New York Times
A wind farm on Panachaiko Mountain, overlooking the Gulf of Corinth near the city of Patras in Greece.

includes ....."Some of the most vocal critics are in Britain, home to more than 150 wind-power projects. Wind farm opponents say the turbines in industrial farms are so big — from 90 to more than 125 yards in height — that they are inevitably intrusive.
“The eyes are constantly drawn to them,” said John Ferguson, a member of S.O.U.L. (or Save Our Unspoilt Landscape), a group opposing the nine-turbine Barmoor Wind Farm in the lush northeastern English county of Northumberland. Several wind farm developers are considering Northumberland, whose castles and national parks are a big tourist draw.
Dr. Ferguson said the turbines could well impinge on prehistoric sites, like the standing stones near Hadrian’s Wall. In order to indicate the size of the proposed turbines, S.O.U.L. has posted a Photoshopped image on its Web site of a wind turbine towering over the imposing Bamburgh Castle     Click here to read full article (have to sign up (free))

Fri 23rd The Journal "Planners ‘misled’ on turbine power
A COMPANY planning a wind farm on a Northumberland moor has been accused of exaggerating the scheme’s benefits.
Renewable energy expert Dr John Constable argued npower renewables had overstated the generation potential of 18 turbines at Middlemoor, near Alnwick.
Dr Constable, director of policy and research for the Renewable Energy Foundation, said the 125-metre turbines near South Charlton would not be able to supply 27,600 homes as stated by the company.
A more realistic figure, he told a public inquiry at Alnwick’s Northumberland Hall, would be less than a third of that – 7,200 homes.
Government planning inspector Alan Novitzky heard that Alnwick District Council officers had been misled on the energy output when arriving at their recommendation last February that no objection be raised to the application, telling councillors 27,000 to 38,000 homes could be supplied.
Their advice was rejected by councillors, triggering npower renewables’ appeal and the inquiry.
Dr Constable said: “A clear and accurate statement of benefits is essential if decision makers are to come to well-reasoned decisions.
“ I have examined the statement of benefits made by the applicants and note that these benefits are inadequately demonstrated, significantly overstated or presented in ways likely to mislead.” The expert, giving evidence for Middlemoor objectors Save Northumberland’s Environment (Sane), arrived at his conclusions on the basis that npower renewables claimed its scheme had the capacity to power 27,600 homes.
The company said it was up to renewable energy suppliers to maximise sites and argued that the output of the turbines could not be calculated until they were in place.
Its representative Marcus Trinick said: “Whether you like it or not, the targets in a regional strategy are phrased in terms of regional capacity.
“You are doing no more in your evidence than to ignore what the Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) says and adopt instead the policy of Mr Constable.”
He said Dr Constable’s views had been dismissed by a wind farm inquiry inspector at Den Brook in Devon, and he invited Mr Novitzky to follow that lead.
The inquiry is due to run until the end of next week, with a decision likely early next year.

Nov 16th Nov, Campbelltown,  Turbine "Bent Double"

 Investigation begins to find out why  turbine failed

Tuesday 13th Nov, Middlemoor public enquiry begins

To view all the proof documents submitted to the enquiry   Click here

Nov 6th France,Sarkozy announces new wind turbine policy

The Sustainable Environment Federation (FED), with the heritage and countryside associations who demonstrated in Paris on October 6 against industrial wind energy, are pleased by President Sarkozy’s redirection of French policy concerning wind turbines and renewable energy.
In his comments at the closure of the « Grenelle de l’environnement », the president of the republic announced the end of the « rush » that has characterized French policy on wind turbines up to now and that ultimately means degradation of the environment. New wind turbines will be installed first in brownfields and far from emblematic locales.
In an improvisation that was not in the prepared text provided to the press, M. Sarkozy turned to José-Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, and added : « Frankly, when I see some European countries, it doesn’t make me envious ».
The president of the republic also announced acceleration of research into energies of the future.
This new policy marks the end of industrial wind turbine installations in rural and wild areas. This is a relief for the 800 villages and 52 departments represented in the October 6 demonstration. It is also a powerful contribution to the image of France and shows Europe that an energy policy can reconcile the fight against global warming and respect for the countryside and every life.
The 1500 demonstrators on October 6 brought six demands. Many of them have been accepted : publicize the true numbers of wind energy development (M. Borloo [environment minister] has committed to this), protect public health from wind turbine nuisance, protect the cultural and natural heritage of France, restore peace in the villages, commit to an effective energy strategy.
The sixth concerns the financial scandal of the price of wind-generated electricity. The highly elevated price encourages the production of intermittent energy which does not promote the reduction of greenhouse gases. It will lead to speculative pressure for the few areas in France that meet the criteria of the new policy.
Just as the president announced that the policy of supporting biofuels will be reviewed, price support for wind turbines needs to be reviewed.
Fédération Environnement Durable
Les Associations de Patrimoine

November Newcastle and Northumberland Society "Windfarms in Northumberland"                    

Nov. 7th Berwickshire News "Planners recommend refusal for Coldingham wind farm plan

Proposal would have adverse affect on landscape                      

October 26, 2007 "New move to stop wind farms"

A new directive from the Government could stop the march of the wind turbines in West Cumbria. It follows the announcement that Dean Moor, south of Cockermouth, had been identified as a potential site for a wind farm and the battle by villagers in Tallentire and surrounding areas to stop turbines there.
The Planning Inspectorate has now said that the cumulative effect of a large number of turbines in an area can be taken into account by council planners for the first time.
In the past, councils had to consider each application separately and could not use other turbines in the same area as a valid objection.
However, Workington MP Tony Cunningham has had assurance from the inspectorate that the cumulative visual effect can now be taken into account.
He said: “I now have it in writing that the cumulative effect should be a factor in planning determinations and that the number of similar turbines in one area is now a material consideration.
"I believe now that enough is enough. We have to balance the cumulative visual intrusion against the electricity they produce.”
The inspectorate said, however, that the cumulative effect would be considered case by case

Oct 24th,The Journal, "Surprise and joy as wind farm rejected"

OPPONENTS of a proposed wind farm in Northumberland were celebrating last night after the plans were rejected. Ridgewind Ltd had sought permission from Berwick Borough Council to build 10 turbines on Wandylaw Farm in Chathill.
But last night, at a meeting of the planning committee, council members decided to reject the plans – by a vote of eight to two – against the advice of officers.
Scores of local people stood and applauded the decision after more than three hours of debate at Berwick High School.
Dominic Coupe, chairman of the Northumberland branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, spoke on behalf of the objectors at the meeting.
He had appealed for the decision to be deferred until the conclusion of a public inquiry into plans to build 18 turbines at neighbouring Middlemoor. But the council members went a stage further and rejected the Wandylaw application.
Mr Coupe said: “I’m surprised by the strength of feeling shown by Berwick councillors who have carefully considered a mass of evidence and done a very considerate and courageous job.
“The councillors have shown exceptional mettle in not doing what I suggested and deferring the decision. They have listened to me, done something different, and come to a conclusion by a significant majority.”
Meanwhile, Nigel Goodhew, of Ridgewind Ltd, revealed his devastation.He said: “Obviously we are very disappointed. I didn’t expect anything other than an informed decision, a decision based on targets on global warming. Those targets are going to affect future generations.”
Mr Goodhew could not confirm whether Ridgewind Ltd would appeal against the decision, admitting he was still “coming to terms” with last night’s events.
Matters were complicated when a late letter of objection was tabled yesterday morning by the Ministry of Defence. Having previously expressed their support twice for the development, yesterday’s letter suggested that the wind farms could interfere with national radar defence systems. With this, and the unresolved matter of the public inquiry on Middlemoor hanging over the decision makers, it was suggested by Coun David Wilson that more time was needed. He said: “I don’t think this should be heard on its own. There is no getting away from the fact that Wandylaw and Middlemoor are one site. Making a decision to grant approval, we would leave a legacy for 25 years. I believe a delay of three months is better than 25 years.”
A report by the North-East assembly advised councils to be wary of the cumulative effect of wind farms. The public inquiry on the Middlemoor application is due to start on November 12.

Oct 23rd The Journal, "Turbines cut ‘isn’t enough’
New study runs into opposition at meeting

A STUDY on the potential for wind farm developments in north Northumberland ran into public opposition last night.
Scores of locals attended a presentation held by the North East Assembly (NEA) at Berwick Rugby Club in Scremerston, which focused on the possible effects of turbines in the area.
The discussion centred around an independent study published by the NEA in conjunction with Northumberland County Council and Berwick Borough Council.
While the report indicated that an estimate of 25 turbines suggested in the draft Regional Spatial Strategy was not suitable, a new suggested maximum of 15 was not enough to placate some members of the crowd.
John Renner, 40, a farmer from Bells Hill, was among those to criticise the study. Speaking to the professionals who put together the report, he said: “I think that putting wind turbines in a subtle, beautiful would destroy it forever.
“You have done your job and you have done it very well, from your point of view.
“What you have tried to do is to quantify nature, and you just can’t quantify nature. “Everyone sees it from a different angle.” The study sought out zones within the Berwick area where wind turbines would have the smallest impact.
The villages and hamlets of Duddo, Bowsden, Shoresdene and Lowick were particularly near to the sites they highlighted.
Malcolm Bowes, assistant chief executive of the NEA, said: “The study provides an objective assessment of the impact that wind farm development would have on the south and west of the Berwick-upon-Tweed landscape. It was important that local people had an opportunity to hear the results and ask questions that relate to their local area. The purpose of the meeting was not to discuss the merits or otherwise of specific planning applications, but the findings of the study.”The meeting was chaired by Dave Ledger, vice chair of the NEA. He was joined by Phil Jones, the assembly’s planning manager, Simon Power, associate director with consultants Arup, and landscape architect Simon White.
Local man Peter Warlock found the findings of the study difficult to take.
Addressing the panel, he said: “For you to come here and tell people the value and meaning of their landscape is hard for them to hear. The real question is: what is the right way this area can contribute to renewable energy?”

Oct 23rd The Guardian,
Labour's plan to abandon renewable energy targets

Leaked documents detail strategy for climate change U-turn

Ministers are planning a U-turn on Britain's pledges to combat climate change that "effectively abolishes" its targets to rapidly expand the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Gordon Brown will be advised today that the target Tony Blair signed up to this year for 20% of all European energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 is expensive and faces "severe practical difficulties".
According to the papers, John Hutton, the secretary of state for business, will tell Mr Brown that Britain should work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets, before binding commitments are framed in December.
It admits that allowing member states to fall short of their renewable targets will be "very hard to negotiate ... and will be very controversial". "The commission, some member states and the European parliament will not want the target to be diluted, though others may be allies for a change," says a draft copy of Mr Hutton's Energy Policy Presentation to the Prime Minister, marked "restricted - policy".
The revelations came as scientists announced that carbon emissions were accumulating in the atmosphere far more quickly than predicted. The sharp increase found by the Global Carbon Project is attributed mainly to Chinese coal-burning and a weakening of the ability of oceans and forests to soak up carbon dioxide.

Oct 10th, The Journal, "Garden to lead fight against turbines bid
North-East wind farm plan to face strong opposition at appeal
ONE of the North-East’s biggest visitor attractions is to lead the fight against plans for a wind farm in Northumberland.
And the Duchess of Northumberland’s Alnwick Garden will be backed by other tourism favourites, including the Chillingham Wild Cattle park and possibly Alnwick Castle – the home she shares with the Duke of Northumberland.
Bosses at the garden believe erecting 18 turbines 125 metres high near the town will reduce visitor numbers to both the garden and the town in general.
The attraction, which is six miles from the proposed site at Middlemoor, also believes the wind farm would dominate the surrounding landscape and be visible for miles around, and from the garden itself.
And the garden is to lead objections to npower renewables’ application at a public inquiry next month. The attraction’s concerns were spelt out by John Lovett, chairman of the Alnwick Garden Trust.
He said: “If built this will be the largest wind farm in England with 18 turbines each 125m tall.
“The centre of the development lies just six miles to the north of the garden and will completely dominate the surrounding landscape.
“The turbines will be miles in all directions.
“The garden is concerned that the sheer scale of the development may discourage visitors to the Alnwick area – these visitors freely express the pleasure they feel when enjoying the fantastic natural and historic landscapes of Northumberland together with the coastal area of natural beauty and the Northumberland National Park.”
Chillingham Wild Cattle Association manages a unique and ancient herd at its park 16 miles from Middlemoor.
It recently invested in a new footpath which leads visitors to the top of a hill from where the turbines would be visible.
Part-time park manager Chris Leyland said: “It is going to detract from the tourist industry. We are directly linked to the tourist industry so it is going to have an adverse effect on us.”
A spokeswoman for Alnwick Castle, where Harry Potter films have been shot, expected the attraction to voice similar concerns.
Npower has dismissed suggestions that the wind farm would affect tourism.
Regional development manager Clare Wilson said: “There are several studies into the effect of wind farms on tourism.
“Amongst the best is that by the University of West England into a proposed wind farm at Fullabrook, Devon.
“It was presented at the public inquiry and found that the wind farm would have no impact on tourism numbers or revenue. The wind farm at Middlemoor could power every home in Alnwick and Berwick districts and as such has a vital role to play in fighting climate change.”
The company’s application is to be determined at a public inquiry after it was rejected by Alnwick District Council in February.
The council is to oppose the plans at the hearing which begins on November 13 and is expected to last three to four weeks.
Issues which will be discussed are the impact on tourism in the countryside, visual impact of the turbines, the noise they would make and whether other sites were considered.
As well as Alnwick Garden, the wild cattle association and probably Alnwick Castle, opposition is to come from Save Northumberland’s Environment, the Northumberland and Newcastle Society, the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England and local parish councils.
The Ministry of Defence is also to make representations.
A final decision on the expected early next year.

9th Oct. The Journal, "Decision soon on controversial wind farm plan"
ONE of the controversial planning applications for wind farms in Northumberland will be decided later this month, council chiefs announced last night.
The bid for 10 turbines at Wandylaw, near North Charlton, north of Alnwick, will be considered by Berwick Council’s planning committee on October 23.
The scheme, proposed by developers RidgeWind Ltd, is one of a number of bids for wind farms in the area that have sparked massive opposition from the rural community over the past 12 months. Earlier this year Northumberland County Council’s planning and regulation committee agreed to raise no strategic objection to the Wandylaw application, nor to oppose npower renewable’s bid for 18 turbines at nearby Middlemoor.
Then a study by consultants Ove Arup for the North-East Assembly said the area could accommodate 100 megawatts of wind energy.
The Wandylaw application will be the only item on the agenda at the meeting, taking place at 6pm at Berwick High School.
A copy of the report will shortly be on the council's website at www.berwickuponand copies will also be available at the council offices.
Yesterday the council said the remaining wind farm applications for Barmoor, Toft Hill and Moorsyde are likely to be considered at a planning meeting in December.

Sept 21st, The Journal "Assembly’s fear on wind farms"

Sept 13th  The Journal  " Inquiry ‘vital for the whole of Northumberland’
THE public inquiry into a planned wind farm in North Northumberland could affect turbine developments across the “whole of Northumberland”, it has been claimed.
A meeting ahead of the public inquiry was held on Tuesday featuring representatives from Alnwick District Council, a protest group and developers npower.
They met a government inspector to discuss the public inquiry into the proposed Middlemoor development near the town. Inspector Alan Novitzky chaired the meeting at the Northumberland Hall and confirmed who would be speaking at the inquiry and what evidence would be submitted.
About 20 members of the public also attended thehour-long meeting.
Nick Blezard, a member of the Save Northumberland’s Environment (Sane) group, said the inquiry was vital not just for the immediate area but for the whole of the county.
He said: “One of the important things about what is happening here is that there are the other inquiries and proposals that are waiting to be heard in Tynedale and Berwick.”
The development would include 18 turbines close to South Charlton.
John Ainslie, head of consents at npower, said a full environmental investigation had been carried out and that the site was appropriate.
“We think it is a very soundly based proposal in a location that has been identified as being appropriate for a wind farm.
“We believe it should go through. We strongly believe in the project and the benefits it will have both in terms of the environment and economically.”
The scheme was turned down by Alnwick Council. Peter Biggers, head of planning, said: “The council’s case is for the inquiry to be refused by the inspector.”
The inquiry will begin on November 13 and interested parties at the meeting have been given deadlines for any submissions they wish to make.
Among the issues to be discussed at the inquiry are visual impact of the wind turbines, the noise they would make, whether other sites were considered and the impact on tourism in the countryside
It is expected to last for three weeks with the outcome announced early next year.
A similar pre-inquiry meeting will be held in Hexham next week in preparation for an inquiry into three separate proposals for wind farms in Tynedale.

Winning isn’t everything, we’re told – but in the news world, coming second has to be avoided. Alastair Gilmour reports on how The Journal leads on one of many fronts.

THE wind doesn’t blow all the time. That may be construed as an everyday experience or even a meteorological phenomenon, but one thing is for sure, understanding the fact is not rocket science.
It’s what the opponents of proposed wind turbines – in north Northumberland in particular – have been saying for some time, and one of the conclusions that The Journal reached in early July in a series of articles on wind farms in the area. Now a BBC Radio 4 programme has backed up everything we said – onshore wind is intermittent, it is unreliable, and it is an inefficient method of producing energy.
So, the question is, why is the Government handing out massive subsidies to wind farm developers for schemes that could ruin spectacular landscapes, devalue people’s homes and destroy tourism-dependent businesses for something that clearly doesn’t give enough in return?
On Costing The Earth: The Wind Rush Generation, presenter Miriam O’Reilly reported on the current flood of proposals for onshore wind farms across the UK, where local and international energy companies are hoping to claim the best remaining sites to erect wind turbines. She asked, “how effective are they?” and concluded that we are frequently being misled about wind energy and that we are paying more to subsidise a still-unreliable source of electricity.
Andrew Joicey, a Northumberland farmer and member of the Save Our Unspoilt Landscape (SOUL) action group, says: “This absolutely confirms everything we have been trying to preach. The ‘revelation’ is exactly what The Journal exposed a few months ago, it’s absolutely fascinating.
“Even more interesting for we locals was the spokeswoman from Your Energy (developers of the proposed Moorsyde wind turbine site near Berwick) struggling to justify the pathetic performance of their wind farm at Burton Wold in Northamptonshire. And, as for the energy minister Malcolm Wickes, well, it’s quite a worry to think that he is in charge and yet apparently so out of touch with the whole thing. You should tell him to read The Journal.”
In the radio programme, Michael Jefferson from the World Renewable Energy Network (WREN) said that financial incentives were encouraging firms to site wind farms badly. He alleged companies were overestimating the figures for planned developments, which has led to the Government paying out cash to them under the Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) scheme. “We should be putting our money where the wind is and that is quite often not where the development pressure is,” he said.
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) rubbished the claims as “nonsense” and said that subsidies are given per unit of electricity to the National Grid – and not for the building of wind farms.
Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the BWEA said: “Nobody in their right mind, not a developer and not the Government, would support the building of a wind farm where the wind speeds are not high enough to generate a viable amount of electricity. It’s absolute nonsense.
“The only pertinent figure is the amount of electricity actually supplied and there is a fixed amount of subsidy per unit of energy. You are only subsidised for what you produce.”
She added that a backlog in connecting the most remote wind farms in the UK to the National Grid was now being tackled.
John Ferguson, a SOUL member who lives adjacent to the proposed Moorsyde site says: “Maria McCaffery appeared on the BBC news at lunchtime before the programme was aired and attacked Michael Jefferson’s character and credentials, saying that WREN was in favour of wind turbines and that she had rung the Dallas-based chief of an organisation by this name who claimed that Mr Jefferson had nothing to do with them.
“Michael Jefferson is a noted figure in the energy field. He is chairman of the Policies Committee of WREN and associate editor of the journal Renewable Energy. He was appointed as an ‘expert reviewer’ by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with special reference to energy supply and use matters. He has published and delivered numerous papers and reports on climatic change and energy matters in over 50 countries.
“Once again, it’s attack the person with lies and not the evidence.”
The message is clear; we should be putting our money where the wind is and not where the development pressure seems easiest to exert. Virtually-constant wind can be harnessed out at sea, not on Northumberland hillsides where variations in strength can be enormous. But you would have known that already because you read it in The Journal.
The inefficiency of the wind: what The Journal reported between Monday July 9 and Saturday July 14, 2007:
Peter Worlock, a Save Our Unspoilt Landscape member, said: “If you look at DTI data, it says the least windy place in the UK is Northumberland. The prevailing wind comes from the west, that’s why wind development has been on the west coast and in Ireland. They have to put them where they get the most wind – putting them in the lee of the Cheviots where there’s not much wind is not the answer, quite apart from the visual impact.”
Nick Maycock, Northumberland businessman: “Energy from wind turbines cannot be stored for future use, it must be fed directly into the National Grid. This means that wind power is only available to meet demand when wind conditions are right. Basically, no wind means no power, then when speeds of 56mph are felt, the turbines shut themselves down for safety.”
Anthony Carroll, Carrol’s Heritage Potatoes, Tiptoe Farm, Northumberland: “The doubt is that they (wind turbines) are inefficient. Toft Hill (site of a proposed wind farm) is only about 200ft above sea level. Surely somewhere high up gets regular wind patterns? It’s not a thought-out policy, it’s being driven by greed. We’re just giving it away. I can’t think of a bigger own-goal for Northumberland.”
Robert Kyriakides, who founded renewable energy business Generysys: “There are significantly higher windspeeds at sea. It is also more stable with less turbulence and less wind shear. One issue constantly raised is the intermittency of wind – a steady supply can never be guaranteed. Electricity, therefore, will be generated only when the wind blows – storage on the required scale is very difficult.”

3rd Sept, Moneyweek, "Why wind power won't work"          

3rd Sept, The Telegraph, letters  "Wind farms are despoiling the fine landscapes of Britain and Europe"                                      

30 Aug. 07 BBC Radio 4, "Costing the Earth"

Daily Mail, 30th August ,Blowing in the wind: Millions wasted on wind farms with no breeze, claims expert

They were meant to be the green answer to Britain's energy needs.
But one expert has claimed the Government is throwing away millions on subsidising wind farms - where there is no wind.
It has also emerged that some wind farms are sitting idle - because they are not connected to the National Grid.
The astonishing claims were made by Michael Jefferson, from the World Renewable Energy Network.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth programme, he said that financial incentives were encouraging firms to site wind farms badly.
He alleged companies were over-egging the figures for planned developments - which led to the Government paying out cash.
"We should be putting our money where the wind is and that is quite often not where the development pressure is," he said.
According to Mr Jefferson, the problem is particularly acute in the Midlands and Home Counties where there is little wind.
The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has rubbished the claims as "nonsense" as subsidies are given per unit of electricity to the National Grid - and not for the building of plants.
Chief executive of the BWEA Maria McCaffery said: "Nobody in their right mind, not a developer and not the government, would support the building of a wind farm where the wind speeds are not high enough to generate a viable amount of electricity.
"It's absolute nonsense.
"The only pertinent figure is the amount of electricity actually supplied and there is a fixed amount of subsidy per unit of energy. You are only subsidised for what you produce."
She added a backlog in conncecting the most remote wind farms in the UK to the National Grid was now being tackled.
Wind turbines are gradually spreading across the UK but have provoked strong reaction from many quarters.
Many have branded the turbines - often sited in the most beautiful parts of the country - as eyesores.
And, even though they are Britain's fastest source of renewable energy, they still meet less than 0.5 per cent of energy needs.
European Union targets state that 20 per cent of all Britain's energy should come from rewewable sources by 2020.
During the Radio 4 programme, Jim Oswald, an engineering consultant, claimed that wind speeds in Britain were too variable - which led to turbines underperforming.
He said: "The volatility thing is a bit like driving your car and I say to you, 'OK, here's a green car, it uses absolutely no fossil fuel but you can only use it when it's windy.
He added variability in wind speed could lead to major power failures in future if the system was not redesigned.
"It's the power swings that worry us. Over a 20-hour period you can go from almost 100 per cent wind output to 20 per cent," he said/
Despite his criticisms, Ms McCaffery said Britain was windier than any other country in Western Europe and most farms would be generating some electricity for 85 per cent of the time.
Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks insisted the Government remained committed to wind energy.
------------------------------------------------
BBC NEWS Assessing the UK's 'wind rush' 

By Maggie Ayre (Costing the Earth, Radio 4)       

HOW WIND FARMS WORK
1. Blades turn shaft inside nacelle - a box at top of turbine. Generator inside nacelle uses magnetic fields to convert rotational energy into electric energy
2. Transformer (in this case, offshore) converts the 700V generated into about 33,000V for distribution and sends it to substation
3. National grid distributes power around the country
Letter to the BBC from John Ferguson:                                                                            

July 23rd, The Journal, Letter from the Chairman of  Northumberland Tourism

July 16th, Yorkshire Post "John Constable: Why the answer isn't necessarily blowing in the wind" 

     John Constable, of  The Renewable Energy Foundation

July 14th, The Journal

©The Journal                                                  

July 13th,

©The Journal                                                  

©The Journal                                                        

July 11th,               

©The Journal                                                       

July 10th, ©The Journal                                                        

BORDER GREEN FESTIVAL  SUNDAY, 8th JULY
Joe Lannon and David Saunders chicken out of debate.

From left, pro-community wind speaker, Bill Short,  who stepped in last-minute, John Constable of the REF, and Peter Worlock, chairman of Soul, replying to questions from the floor

Despite the fact that we were appearing at a "green festival" with a possibly hostile audience who may not have been fully aware of the facts about  the inefficiency of wind power, both Mr Lannon and Mr Saunders failed to appear. They are both closely linked to the  developers of Moorsyde and Barmoor respectively.    
Soul had been approached by the organisers of the festival and asked if we would be prepared to participate in an open debate on the merits of wind power. We managed to arrange a most prestigious and knowledgeable speaker who is employed in research projects for the Renewable Energy Foundation as one of the speakers in the debate, along with our chairman, and that seems to have sent the wind campaigners running for cover - perhaps they don't even believe their own rhetoric ?
If they aren't prepared to stand up and fight their corner, then their pro-wind proclamations in the press must all be just a lot of hot air!

 

John Constable and Bill Short listen to environmental activist Jeff Macdonald, who was there with Seasoned Greenpeace campaigner, Richard Claxton, from its Hull and East Yorks branch, present as a member of the audience. Mr Claxton admitted to the Journal last December that he is working as a campaign consultant fpr Your Energy Ltd, the company tha wants to erect a series of nine wind turbines at Moorsyde , near Berwick.     

. This is Richard Claxton below   

 

© Photograph by kind courtesy of Don Brownlow

July 9th The Journal " Pro lobby pair snub debate"

“The turbines are designed to operate at 20-30%.“There is no problem with the wind there
Phil Jones, planning manager for the North-East Assembly, said: “The North-East Assembly’s renewable energy strategy, produced in 2005, identified that, in the short and medium term, onshore wind generation is the biggest resource available to North-East England to meet its renewable energy targets.
As other technology is developed and it becomes more feasible to exploit other sources, then they will form an increasing part of the energy mix in the longer term.”
Dr Constable will appear at the Border Green Festival, at Mill Farm, Tweedmouth, with Peter Worlock, chairman of the Save our Unspoilt Landscape group and pro-wind farm speakers from 2.30pm on Sunday

November 23, Berwick Advertiser , "Wind turbines will not save the planet", letters

SIR, — The October issue of The Shareholder, a magazine which gives advice on buying shares in profit making companies, has focused on what it describes as the energy revolution and particularly on alternative options.
It states: “The UK is said to have the largest potential wind resource in Europe and currently has some 1700 turbines in operation across 134 farms. There are another 20 farms currently under construction and a further 85 approved projects around the UK. Wind power is, however, ‘land hungry’ – it requires some 235,000 acres ( or 368 square miles) per gigawatt of electricity generated – but land is something we don’t have in abundant supply. Wind is also by definition an unpredictable source of energy.”
The article recommends buying shares in a Scottish power company which has recently been granted approval to develop Europe’s largest on-shore wind farm. The turbines for this are to be built by a German company, the contract being worth £235 millions! Which begs the question, are wind farms being constructed to reduce CO2 emissions, or are they seen as a nice little earner?
The Government requires electricity suppliers to source 10% of their supply from renewables by 2010 and 15% by 2015, and wind power is expected to account for up to three quarters of this. Is it any wonder then that north Northumberland is being flooded with wind farm applications? In order to persuade local people to accept these proposals developers are offering a community fund, but there would be no compensation for those in the tourist industry if their income dropped or for house owners who, having invested large sums of money in their homes, find their property devalued as the result of nearby wind turbines.
Meanwhile the Government and its supporters have resorted to feeding the public a daily diet of global warming catastrophes in the hope that perpetual repetition and induced guilt will result in an unconditional acceptance of their policies. Of course most of these scenarios are based on supposition, and attempts are being made to suppress the fact that scientific opinion is still split on both the causes of climate change and any long term consequences. After all, the climate has always been in a process of change throughout the earth’s history. For example, between 1940 and 1975 there was a period of cooling and many will remember the predictions that we might be entering another ice age - “global cooling” was the problem. For 400 years, up to 1400AD, Viking farmers were cultivating an ice-free south-western Greenland. Sheep and cattle grazed on land which is now under permafrost. However, the debate on global warming left the realm of science some time ago and is now totally politicised. Independent scientific criticism is not met with a scientific response, but with invective, name-calling and a stepping up of the scare tactics.
Time and time again the public is being told that extreme weather events are becoming more common. Where is the proof? Historical documents throughout the centuries, both here and abroad, are peppered with accounts of droughts, floods, famine, hurricanes and sub-zero temperatures as well as periods of warming. The flooding in Carlisle, during January 2005, is a perfect example. Prior to that date Carlisle and the Eden Valley flooded in 1771, 1816, 1857, 1925 and in 1968.
Undoubtedly society needs to curb its excessive use of energy but turning Britain into a vast industrial wind turbine repository is not the answer. Wind turbines might reduce CO2 emissions by a small amount — when the wind conditions are right — but they certainly will bring rich rewards to developers, shareholders and some landowners. The suggestion that these machines will somehow save the planet from destruction is absolutely ludicrous. The climate / weather is its own master, as history proves.
ANN FERGUSON,
Bowsden.

Click the picture below to read full articles and for views of the Blimp

17th August, Berwick Advertiser "Wind farm campaigners hit out at 'last gasp PR fiasco'

Wind farm developer Your Energy has reduced the number of proposed turbines from 14 to 10, removing the two at the far west of the site, and the two closest to Shoresdean.

" Read more

Sun 13th August, The Scotsman "Power loss a blow to wind farm"

ONE of the UK's biggest offshore wind farms is producing less than a third of the electricity it should be, a new report has found.

ONE of the UK's biggest offshore wind farms is producing less than a third of the electricity it should be, a new report has found.
Read on

and comment "March of the Martian turbines will reap the whirlwind"GERALD WARNER

.  Read on

31st July, Telegraph Business "Grid issues 500M demand"

A PARISH Council is defying government rules which it claims deny its members the right to consider wind farm applications on its patch.

Belford's council has been advised that, because of previously-stated views on wind farms, it should not consider future wind farm applications, including that at Barmoor
However, at its last meeting the council passed a resolution pledging to continue stating its views on wind farms.
Parish councillor Geoff O'Connell said: "We will continue to write to the Secretary of State, with copies to the relevant local authorities, when wind farm applications come in. We reserve the right, which was fought for for years and years, to express our view."
The problem arose because, in responding to the application for a wind farm near North Charlton, in January, the parish council wrote that it opposed not only that proposal but the 'other seven or eight (wind farms) which are in the course of preparation'.
Because of this, Berwick's borough solicitor Liam Henry — who acts as the local monitoring officer, making sure councils and councillors follow the rules — advised the council that it had 'predetermined' its response to the other applications and would be unable to 'objectively consider' them.
Mr Henry warned that council decisions taken under those circumstances could be subject to judicial review and that individual councillors could be held responsible and surcharged.
The parish council's response was a motion stating: "Since the Bill of Rights recorded rights of freedom of expression and speech this council sees no reason to obey a code which sets out to fly in the face of this fundamental right. We shall continue to represent the wishes of the community which we have been elected to represent and hold this right to be ours."
The case has been taken up by a columnist with a national Sunday newspaper who is running a long campaign against the code of conduct for councillors. Under the code, introduced in 2001, councillors with a 'personal or prejudicial interest' in an item have to leave meetings when they are discussed.
However, Mr Henry told the Advertiser that his advice, given at the request of the parish council, was based not on the code of conduct but the law of predetermination, which existed before the code of conduct was introduced.
"They seemed to be predetermining their opinion about a particular application, which as a parish council they should not do," he said. "They are required to keep an open mind."
But at least one other parish councillor in the borough, who does not wish to be named, has fallen foul of the code of conduct. Because the councillor is a member of an anti-wind farm pressure group, he was not allowed to take part in discussions of one of the wind farm applications.                                   

3rd April 06, The DTI.     North East “least windy”

 A government report has confirmed that the North East is “one of the least windy regions”.  The Department of Trade and Industry’s “Energy Trends” document, published April 3rd, shows that wind turbines deployed in the North East would produce the least electricity.

Information for the last 3 years for which data is available shows that the average capacity factor for wind power stations in the North East was just 21% - versus a UK average of 28%.  In 2003 the capacity factor in the North East was as low as 19%.

The capacity factor measures the efficiency of wind turbines against their claimed maximum output. Neville Fawcett, an emeritus professor of machine dynamics who lives in Embleton has seen the data.  Professor Fawcett explained, “Any wind turbine in an area where the measured capacity factor is 21%, as opposed to 28%, will produce only three-quarters of the predicted electrical output and will give only three-quarters of the forecast reduction in carbon dioxide.”

This seriously undermines developers’ claims about the giant wind turbines proposed across Northumberland and County Durham. 
The figures that developers have released in the past were based on national averages.  This new data from the DTI makes it look as though the developers in the region have been overstating the probable output.  Northumberland and County Durham are even less suitable for giant wind turbines than has been claimed.

It is now time to move the debate forward and to start concentrating on the renewable energy technologies that will cut carbon dioxide emissions efficiently: solar, tidal, biomass and ground-source heat pumps.  The new focus from the government on micro-generation in the North East is to be welcomed.

DTI figures skewed ? To read more click here

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Northumberland Gazette 20th April 2006

Wind Farms too inefficient to be viable

The Sunday Times    February 05, 2006

In which he states "We're all doomed so to hell with Wind farms"
Quote "His argument about the uselessness of wind turbines is compelling: they only work 25% of the time — when it is blowy — and cannot store energy."

also in the Sunday Times of 5th Feb :

Wind farms face 10-year delay for grid connection

January 18, 2006           Wind Turbine on Fire
Credits: Bucks Free Press in 'Fears for safety raised over school turbine plan' 1/18/06

A 200ft wind turbine in Wearside which burst into flames on Christmas Eve last year. The 75ft fibreglass blades burnt off and fell to the ground leading police to close two roads close to the tower. Residents from miles around reported thick black smoke emanating from the turbine at the Nissan factory - Inset picture courtesy of Sunderland Echo