Talkback: Wind Farm Campaign Group Calls For Support

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

I see lots of wind turbines when I fly into Amsterdam. In the abscence of hills in the Netherlands the turbines are sited in the docks, industrial areas, along motorways and seem to work ok. This also gives easy access for construction and maintainence.

These locations argue against the UK's reasons for placing turbines on hills, not only being an eyesore but access roads must be built and cables laid or pylons built to the further detriment of the countryside.

He's The Devils' Advocate

tl;dr

If we must build these things, stick them in the towns and cities. That's where the consumers are.

Our "local" turbine continues to cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth, mainly because of its' visual impact. (It's fuckin' huge)

 Wee Ecks' vision > Tourism

Trouble no one about their religion;

respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours.

~Chief Tecumseh~

Parky Again wrote (see)

Kill birds? Evidence please as the rspb seem to differ in opinion.

Just one of the many links from asking about bird kills on a search engine:-

On 12 January 2012, at the First Scientific Congress on Wind Energy and Wildlife Conservation in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, the Spanish Society of Ornithology (SEO/Birdlife) made public its estimate that, yearly, Spain’s 18,000 wind turbines may be killing 6 to 18 million birds and bats (1). The average per turbine comes down to 333 – 1,000 deaths annually, which is a far cry from the 2 – 4 birds claimed by the American wind industry, or the 400,000 birds a year estimated by the American Bird Conservancy for the whole United States, which has about twice as many turbines as Spain.

"Only reason required : they don't even nearly do what they're supposed and claimed to do by the generation companies." there is a body of expert opinion that would disagree with that statement backed up by rather a lot of proper numbers and engineering.

as does government energy policy. as does scottish enerygy policy to further the target aims of the energy policy.

spain's 18,000 turbines MAY be making my cat run up the curtains which is just as valid a statement as that made.

does that mean that scotland's turbines, not situate on any migration path or near bat colonies, MAY each kill 333-1,000 birds annually. if so i would have thought at least someone WOULD have noticed that number of carcasses strewn about the ground.

now split the bird deaths out by year of turbine installation. any change on the figures?

windmills are an evolving technology which is changing rapidly as lessoons are learned from experience.

birds are killed by turbines just as birds are killed by overhead powerlines and sheets of glass. it seems to be rather unlucky being a bat but i don't think they install turbines near to bat colonies anymore. or do they?

whether windmills work, are economic, are the wrong colour or whatever other prejudices and grasp at the ice floe for support you may wish to encompass the pure simple and only FACT of the situation is that planning committees approve windmills. actual FACT. no supposition or wild-eyed claims.

central government policy wants windmills - as does local government. the committees/enquiries can not go against government policy so no point wasting your breath or blood pressure over it. to change that aspect you must change government policy.

you can object to windmills on "spoils the view"** or environmental factors (pollution, noise, wildlife damage etc). that's about it. i think. i'd be pleased to be proved wrong on that.

**a very loose definition which boils down to spoils the view but is in fact much more.

some argumanets against i think actually favour their siting. e.g. kills birds and bats? put them up there on those hills where there aren't so many of them. affect's nesting birds - huzzah as the rest of the environment loves not having birds wandering around eating them and pulling things apart.

those who do the unglamorous boring constant repetition of rational and sensible discussion with ears that are attached to influence are the ones who will get, hopefully, things changed. the anti-zealots merely do their best to undermine the efforts of those who actually understand the problemby tarring opposition with a loony tag.

Trouble no one about their religion;

respect others in their view and demand that they respect yours.

~Chief Tecumseh~