Perhaps the withdrawal of Shell from the 350 wind turbine scheme in the Thames estuary and the recent rejection of the plans for Lewis may be catalysts for a reality check on wind power.

Perhaps the withdrawal of Shell from the 350 wind turbine scheme in the Thames estuary and the recent rejection of the plans for Lewis may be catalysts for a reality check on wind power.

Wind turbines will do absolutely nothing to mitigate against climate change. Even the British Wind Energy Association, the trade union of the commercial developers, does not attempt to refute calculations that show that even if all Britain's renewables targets are met, the savings in global emissions will be less than 0.0004%, a total which would be eclipsed in less than seven days by increases from China and India.

The madness of wind power policy results from a lethal combination of greedy developers and brain-dead politicians. At great public expense, it results in desecration of our nation's beautiful landscape for no environmental or energy security benefit.

As Professor Lovelock states: "The wind policy, with crude and unsustainable industrial development, will fail and will bring discredit both to the greens and to the politicians foolish enough to adopt it."

J Mark Gibson, Craigengillan, Dalmellington, Ayr.

I'd like to echo David McMillan's call (May 2) for research into energy storage and also correct Mr A R Nelson (also May 2) concerning the quotation published in my letter of April 28.

The words were not from the Sustainable Development Commission (although that body has reported favourably about wind energy) but from the UK Energy Research Centre. UKERC comprises more than 80 researchers based across the UK at various universities and institutions; its mission is to be the UK's pre-eminent centre of research, and source of authoritative information and leadership, on sustainable energy systems.

Their report (from which I quoted), The Costs and Impacts of Intermittency: An assessment of the evidence on the costs and impacts of intermittent generation on the British electricity network, contains much useful information based on many other referenced studies and is well worth reading. Repeating just one part of my quote - ". . . it is unambiguously the case that wind energy can displace fossil-fuel-based generation, reducing both fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions".

While onshore wind is currently the most cost-effective large-scale source of renewable energy in the UK, many other methods (together with energy storage techniques) are being developed around the world.

A major potential method which has not received much attention in these columns is solar energy from North Africa. This would involve storage of heat to enable base load electricity production and sub-sea, high-voltage, direct-current cables to distribute the power throughout Europe; wind energy from our own north-western fringe would also be an infeed.

This concept is being promoted by Trec - the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation, an initiative of the Club of Rome, (an international network of scientists and engineers developing a collaboration among countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa) to take advantage of the truly enormous quantities of energy falling as sunlight on the world's deserts - and wind energy in those regions, too.

Projects of this magnitude and vision are needed in response to the latest thinking on climate change, which because of increasing danger from tipping points, sees a need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2030.

Clive Brown, Otters, Ardfern, Argyll.

THREE generations of my family have been travelling by car through Holland,Germany and Belgium for l0 days and everytime a wind farm appeared on the horizon at least one of us remarked what a lovely sight was in front of us yet once again turning in the wind.

Lore Lucas, 10 McLaren Court, Fenwick Place, Glasgow.

Robert Todd's claim (Letters, May 1) that wind power is not renewable is complete nonsense.

Wind power originates from solar energy. The sun will continue to shine for billions of years.

Kerr MacGregor, Scottish Solar Energy Group, 31 Temple, Midlothian.