Poor research and ill-advised policies

Scores of next to useless devices a monument to poor research and ill-advised policies

Now the high summer is here, how many readers have seen the wind turbines spinning wildly?  No, I thought not many of you.  These improvident behemoths are very heavily subsidised and generate little, other than profit for the manufacturers and income for those leasing the land on which stand these consummate bird killers and natural beauty despoilers. Twitchers flocking recently to the Outer Hebrides to sight a rare bird recorded only eight times in 170 years were horrified to see it killed by a turbine.  And turbines have been filmed exploding. (see: youtube.com/watch?v=u14tBwO5QVQ&feature=youtu.be)

Yes, of course the wind is free, but turbines have to be kept supplied with ‘always on’ conventional power anyway, which is why you see them turning slowly at an unvarying speed whenever there is little or no wind.

We should all be pleased and relieved that at last their unreliability and truly suspect financial viability has been exposed throughout Europe.  The UK would have to be covered from end to end and side to side with turbines to make any measurable contribution to overall energy resource. There are plenty of peer-reviewed references and studies which now show this is so with unquestionable accuracy.  And with the latest units being taller than Big Ben they have become cumulatively unsightly and ruinously expensive to maintain, directly inflating all our electricity bills.

The offshore units are especially and incredibly expensive to maintain, but with their life of under 25 years, and their heavy decommisioning costs now being exposed, wind farms everywhere are now rapidly falling out of favour.   With a maximum of 26% output, and certainly here in Cyprus with the many months of light winds, the economic viability is exceptionally suspect when capital and running costs are fully and honestly taken into account.

A former energy minister blew (sorry) almost all the alternative energy budget on these things and now we have been lumbered with scores of next to useless devices which stand as monuments to poor research, ill advised policy commitments and economic illiteracy.

Reflect on this as you look up at these modern exemplars of waste.

 

Clive Turner, Kamares

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.