Why we are doing what we are doing

This site has been created because we are concerned about inappropriately large wind turbines.

We are not anti-wind or anti-renewables and we haven't objected to the smaller developments in the area. However, recently there have been projects at various stages of planning that are three and four times the size of any of the turbines that are currently in the area. Unlike the existing Turbine projects, these benefit the few, to the massive detriment of the community.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Iphone & iPad app to check the stats

This app allows you to view the UK's electricity generation, separated by generation type. The average generation for the last 5 minutes and half hour can be viewed, as well as the total generation in the last 24 hours.

Three new Turbines get planning approval in Steelend

Another three Wind Turbines have recently obtained Planning Permission, this time in Steelend.

Below is the latest map. Click here to see it in detail.

Letter from Bernard Ingham to Chris Huhne - Energy Secretary (The Times, 7th march)

Dear Chris

I've been meaning to write this letter for some time.

I am assured on all sides that you have a very good brain and are "an evidence-based economist". Unfortunately, this does not square with your energy policy. It has more inconsistencies in it than holes in a colander. I am not ungrateful now that you have cleared the way for the private development of nuclear power -. My particular interest. You have certainly come off your untenable opposition to it, which is a blessing. But to suggest that you are in favour of it is pure spin. You will contemplate it only if not a penny of public subsidy is involved.

This would be fair enough, especially as the nuclear industry is not, to my knowledge, seeking subsidies, if you were not simultaneously pouring riches beyond the dreams of avarice at a time of straitened national finances into largely useless renewable sources of energy, notably wind and solar. You are able to do this only because the taxpayer is riot being asked to throw good money after bad. Instead, the consumer has to foot the mounting bill. So much for concern about fuel poverty: I've space for only one more inconsistency:

If you are in the business of the security of electricity supply, why wind (which is totally unreliable) and solar (no use at night)? Especially when engineers have serious doubts about how much wind the national grid can take without blowing a gasket. .In short, your energy policy sadly lacks evidence of brainpower. It certainly will not deliver your declared objective of securing low- carbon electricity supplies in an affordable way: Only nuclear can deliver that. It's so elementary that I worry about you.

Bernard Ingham

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Wind farm developer accused of 'desperate attempts' to exaggerate support for plans - The Courier

A wind farm developer has been accused of hiring lobbyists to back its bid to build turbines on a Fife hillside.
West Coast Energy is using PR firm Invicta Public Affairs as it attempts to gain planning permission for seven 120-metre high turbines on Clatto Hill, between Kennoway and Kingskettle.

Following a sudden spate of letters of support to Fife Council after several months of objections piling up, campaigners Clatto Landscape Protection Group claimed the firm was making "desperate attempts" to create the impression of support for its project.

Read full article in The Courier

Sunday 6 March 2011

Impact on UK Farming

Average age of UK farmer is 55 so payments from Wind Turbines are their retirement. What will happen to farms? Food prices are already increasing, UK government recognises the need to produce more of our own food, this directly opposes the Wind Turbine policy. Farmers make more from wind farms than farming. The UK is in danger of losing its “Food Security” and being reliant on other countries to feed its population.

Payments to Landowners

We are not nimbys

Communities and individuals usually only start looking into the effectiveness of wind power when it becomes something that directly affects them, such as when plans for a wind farm in the local area are being discussed.  It’s at this point when research is undertaken that you begin to realise it’s not reducing carbon footprint, even the landowners who site turbines on their land agree they only do it for the ‘subsidies’.

The cost of renewable energy to every UK taxpayer

On every gas and electricity bill that UK households receive, there is a hidden tax. A tax of more than 8%.  It's called the Renewables Obligation.  Energy companies are obligated – that is, they are forced by the government under pain of fines and imprisonment – to spend a chunk of their revenues developing and installing non-fossil energy production systems.  That means they are forced to pay for things like wind factories, photo-electric technology and wave power, whether or not they think these generation methods have the slightest value, either to themselves or the nation.

Like all political efforts to make companies pay for things, the government's plan does not work.  The energy companies do not pay for these generation technologies.  The cost does not come out of their profits, or their shareholders' dividends.  It comes from their customers, naturally.  All of us who use energy in the home – and there may be one or two completely self-sufficient households in the UK, but the other 28 million or so do have to buy in gas or electricity – end up paying.  We pay this premium on our bills so that our energy companies can subsidise wind farmers.
This information is taken from The Renewables Obligation, August 26, 2010, written by Dr Eamonn Butler, The Adam Smith Institute. Click here for the full article.

Lessons to learn from other countries

Denmark (population 5.3 million) has over 6,000 turbines that produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used in 2002, only 7% of this energy is used, the remaining 12% is wasted or exported at a very low cost.
Wind turbines are so expensive that Holland recently became the first country in Europe to abandon their EU renewable energy target announcing that it’s to slash it’s annual subsidies by billions of euros.

Wind Power is not Effective

Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants must be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity.  To date, no power stations have been shut down as a result of wind energy and investment is not being put in to maintain existing power stations so there is a real risk that we will import more energy in future as a result of too much reliance on wind farms. 
Most power stations cannot simply be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises.  The quick ramping up and down of those that can be would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide (the primary "greenhouse" gas).  When the wind is blowing just right for the turbines, the power they generate is usually a surplus and sold to other countries at an extremely discounted price, or the turbines are simply shut off.

Saturday 5 March 2011

Map of Wind Turbines North of Dunfermline

Click on this link to Google Maps to find out heights, planning stage and location




Why the £250bn wind power industry could be the greatest scam of our age - and here are the three 'lies' that prove it - Daily Mail

Scarcely a day goes by without more evidence to show why the Government's obsession with wind turbines, now at the centre of our national energy policy, is one of the greatest political blunders of our time.

Under a target agreed with the EU, Britain is committed within ten years — at astronomic expense — to generating nearly a third of its electricity from renewable sources, mainly through building thousands more wind turbines.

But the penny is finally dropping for almost everyone — except our politicians — that to rely on windmills to keep our lights on is a colossal and very dangerous act of self-deception. Read Full Article

See the Screening Planning Application - Cowdens Farm

If you would like to see the screening planning application made and coment on it, then follow this link.

What the farmers say...

When interviewed about the article below in the Dunfermline Press relating to the 3 x 86m wind Turbines being proposed, a local farmer had the following to say:

"99.9% of farmers at the market are getting them"
"I don't want to be left behind"
"We're going for 85m turbines, but trust me, they'll only be 45m ones"
"I didn't know (LocoGen) were submitting plans"
"The big one is going to be behind Roscobie Hill, not there (Dunduff)"
"You won't make me change my mind, they'll be going up everywhere"
"It's my land, I need the money and will do whatever I need to to get the best return"

Firm sounds out Fife Council over 85-metre wind turbines - Dunfermline Press

A WIND energy company has put in a pre-application screening notice for three wind turbines near Steelend.

The scoping exercise, by Edinburgh-based Locogen Ltd, is for three medium-scale turbines - which could be up to 85 metres in height - at Cowdens Farm, Dunduff...
Read More

It is interesting to read that Ian McLean, Locogen's wind projects manager, said the turbines could be anywhere between 50-85m. Whereas the submission to Fife Council states that they are 86.25m.

How big is a 65m Wind Turbine?

The Wallace Monument, which is visible from Fife, is 62m high. See how it compares to one of the "medium" sized wind turbines. Imagine what an 85m "medium" sized turbine would look like.


What do they sound like?

Listen to a a Wind Turbine situated in Aberdeen:
http://www.wind-watch.org/video-aberdeenshire.php

Imagine it at night when there's no other noise around, or sitting out in the garden.

Watch what happens to a Wind Turbine in a storm

If you're worried about what might happen when there is too much wind for a Wind Turbine to cope, take a look at this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA