SIR – Two replies on the inefficiencies of wind-power warrant response.
Geoff Southgate (T&A, December 31) maintains that his self-financed windmill attracted no grants.
Yet any excess electricity he sells to the Grid earns money through an inflated feed-in tariff, at a higher price than to generate it by more efficient means. This ‘bribe’ is a grant subsidy, funded by the rest of us.
Keith Thomson suggests that wind blows for 90 per cent of the time – possibly true, but mostly a gentle zephyr, not a mega-watt generating gale, so that use of selective statistics matches the pattern of the lobby. He also maintains that they do not produce CO2, omitting to account for all the original materials used in their manufacture, transport and erection. The same is claimed for electric cars, which themselves produce none, but with an equivalence of around 100g per km when we include the generation of the power they use, to say nothing of their evil battery materials.
These all help demonstrate the wealth of misinformation and obfuscation which prevails in the power debate. Let’s all start telling it as it is, then we might end up agreeing on some truths.
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