AS we swelter in this fine summer, I wonder if any readers know that we could all be in grave danger from the dreaded “Tickenden Zeitbomben”.
Is it a fearsome Scottish cleg? Is it the fabled Loch Ness Monster?
No, but it could be much closer to you than you think and potentially extremely dangerous as we are importing more to this country than ever before.
In fact, our once beautiful countryside is now littered with them so they are now visible to all of us from more than 60 per cent of Scotland.
Because of poor maintenance, oil leaks, and extremely high gear ratios, many old wind turbines pose an increasing risk of spontaneous combustion and collapse. This is happening alarmingly often, particularly in Germany where they are now known as “Ticking Time Bombs”.
Hundreds of Scotland’s wind farms have been stupidly built in forests, or on fragile peat-covered moorland, where because of ecological reasons they should never have been in the first place, in reality a tinder-dry touch paper at the moment.
With the recent prolonged drought, many bush, farm and moorland fires have been raging with obvious, disastrous consequences. If one, or some of these giant turbines bursts into flames, scattering debris and sparks, they could quickly start a rapidly spreading, raging inferno because they are proving impossible to extinguish at such a height.
So, the pertinent question you have to ask politicians who are responsible for this flaming mess is: when will this constant, ever-present danger be removed?
And what about the health and safety of our families, and countryside?
George Herraghty,
Lothlorien, Lhanbryde, Elgin, Moray.
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