For quoting again from Mr Booker ~ this time he is giving the facts about windfarms, the vision of one such blights the views across the sea from my house. It was being built when we arrived here so I am not complaining at its existence but I do question the whole concept. They simply do not work efficiently. They are not value for our tax pounds. They do not reduce our carbon footprint because of the costs of building, maintenance and removal at the end of their thirty year lifespan. They are in short a waste of space. On the plus side they do kill a few seagulls AKA Vermin.
A further huge question mark has been raised over the Government's plan to build 7,000 offshore wind turbines round Britain's coasts, to help meet its EU target of 15 percent of our electricity from â renewables' by 2020.
The director of renewable generation for Centrica, our largest windfarm developer, last week revealed that the cost of this plan to create 33,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity has doubled in three years, from £40 billion to £80 billion.
But since, thanks to fluctuations in the wind, offshore turbines generate on average only 27.5 per cent of capacity, the actual power produced by these turbines would be only 9,000MW, putting its price at £8.8 million per MW.
The latest nuclear power station being built in Finland at a cost of £2.7 billion will produce 1600MW, 24 hours a day, representing £1.7 million per MW. In other words, six nuclear power stations could produce more electricity than all those windfarms for only a fifth of the price.
If Centrica really wants to help Britain keep its lights on, it could, for £80 billion, build 30 "carbon-free" nuclear power stations to generate 48,000MW of electricity, more than the average 47,000MW now produced by all Britain's power plants.
But since this would not count towards meeting our EU renewables target, to do anything so sensible would put us in serious breach of EU law.
Stand by for those lights to go out.
