I HAVE just returned from a very pleasant weekend with our grandchildren in Cumbria.
As every parent knows, a five-hour car journey with small children can be challenging, especially if you're short on treats and stories.
We have discovered the perfect diversion if you are driving with bored teenies in Scotland, especially from Lockebie to Perth and on to Aberdeen. It's called "spot and count the turbines".
This is quite an easy game for kids because there are turbines visible nearly all the way. With so many to count, we introduced a variation on the game by asking them to count the number that weren't turning (which was considerable) and, an idea for older children with calculators, we thought might be for them to calculate the amount of subsidies given to developers, foreign multinationals and landowners.
This may be good fun for kids and certainly makes the journey seem to pass a lot more quickly for them but, for us adults, it was all too depressing to see the desecration of our once-beautiful country by these obscene, costly industrial complexes on our unique environment.
Iain G Richmond,
Guildy, Monike, Angus.
I agree the hypothetical figure Dr RM Morris quotes of saving 350 kg CO2 per MWh through the adoption of wind power is, as he suggests, accurately taken from the Institute of Public Policy Research report "Beyond the Bluster" (Letters, September 27) .
However I feel he has not comprehensively provided the relevant facts that this report adds in explaining the origins of the figure.
Page seven states: "The 'marginal plant' model of the carbon impact of wind is a very convenient and immediate way of understanding the effect that wind power will have on the electricity system's carbon emissions. However it is based purely on the short-run marginal costs of generation and a number of other simplifying assumptions that introduce some uncertainty about the results."
I feel people often forget that wind turbines and their infrastructure leave a significant carbon footprint in their manufacture and continual maintenance. They also, individually, have a planned lifespan of only 20 years if lucky.
There is also a knock-on effect in the mixed energy model to the perceived efficiency of traditional fossil fuel stations every time wind energy taps into the national grid. As a rough analogy, if half the people in a village suddenly started baking their own bread the local baker's shop window would be full of unsold bread and its ovens would suddenly appear cost inefficient. Wind power, like the fad for homemade bread, is equally fickle and transient.
I am certain that, during the recent storms, many wind turbines in Scotland would have been directed to shut down with Government compensation paid to the power contractors.
I also remain unconvinced there is any validity in Dr Morris comparing the historical acceptability and impact of the Forth Bridge with the sprawling intrusiveness of the wind-farm installations which dominate the panorama for many Scots.
Bill Brown,
46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.
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