Bishop Hill Paterson - wind will not work
Sep 15, 2012 Energy: wind Owen Paterson has given his first major interview, choosing Farmer's Weekly for this important occasion.
You have a reputation for being a climate change sceptic. Are you?
I’m practical. I’m really amazed by the way this has all blown up. There has been significant opposition in my part of the world to inland wind farms – for the sensible reason there is no wind there.
But I am clear that climate change is happening – climate change has been happening and will continue to happen. And it is quite obvious there is a man-made element to that.
What I want to see is the right measures in the right place delivering the right results.
From my own direct constituency experience I don’t personally think that inland wind farms are effective at reducing carbon. I don’t even think they are effective at producing energy.
Reader Comments (55)
@ Mooloo 03:41
So we both agree then, "no" was inaccurate, he should have used the word "insufficient".
I'm with Mooloo
Slightly off topic but I've read in recent days that Japan has decided to close all its nuclear plants. Given that they have supplied 30+% of their electricity requirements, what will they replace them with? Will they go the same way as Germany with coal fired plants? I'm sure they will NOT go with wind generators.
Also I picked up this link from another site today --it is an older article but it explains India's plans to dramatically increase electricity supply --chosen fuel = coal.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/2518/India-Opening-Power-Sector-to-Private-Investment-Coal-Still-the-Fuel-of-Choice
The article was written before Copenhagen but note the quote from Pachauri ( what a hypocrite !!!)
" That message was made clear by none other than Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian academic who chairs the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In July, Pachauri asked reporters “Can you imagine 400 million people who do not have a light bulb in their homes?” And he went on to explain where India was going to be getting its future power: “You cannot, in a democracy, ignore some of these realities and as it happens with the resources of coal that India has, we really don't have any choice but to use coal.”
Owen Paterson
takes practical matters on
board...
There. Rhymed it for you.
A glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. perhaps, that statement from Paterson....
Anyway - NOW we're being told in The Sunday Times by no other than Jonathan Leake (their Environment correspondent) that, not only is carbon dioxide perhaps not actually Satan in disguise, but the chemicals now fiddling with the atmosphere (with lives of thousands of years) are the very GREEN ones developed to replace the nasty refrigerants which were 'causing' the hole in the ozone layer.
Ain't it just the case about Politics - according to my trusty Des McHale book of quotes:
'Politics is the art of looking for trouble; finding it everywhere; diagnosing it wrongly and applying unsuitable remedies..'
Re wind farms - but in this case offshore ones: as a retired engineer who spent much of his life trying to keep production machinery going on dry land and miles from the coast; I have real concerns about the longevity of these things. Firstly, they are in the most hostile envionment on earth. Secondly, they have no 'on site' maintenance team, unlike (e.g.) oil and gas rigs. Thirdly - they have no convenient means of access; even the simplest maintence tasks will require benign sea conditions. Finally - major repairs would require a large floating crane (along with said benign sea conditions).
I give them five years before one or more major failures; and twelve years before wholesale abandonment of one or more offshore wind farms.