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(Updated from a year ago:)
Here's wishing for an improved world in 2006,
especially for those suffering involuntary and
uncompensated impositions for private profit
masquerading as public good.
One hot issue in that context is the possible extension of compulsory
powers to wind farm developers (item 6 below). Directly affected
landowners would be compensated, to some extent, but neighbours
wouldn't.
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1. An update from Susan Hopkinson on the Luichart wind farm proposal
(news203.3) is at APPENDIX A.
2. Hundreds of letters are written against wind farms, some technically
well informed. One in The Scotsman 31.12.05 from Anthony Trewavas FRS, a
prominent scientist from Edinburgh University, is worth noting for
putting the point in simple terms. It is at APPENDIX B.
3. Another year-end letter, from Professor Philip Stott in The Times
29.12.05, is at APPENDIX C, putting the year of natural disasters in its
historical perspective.
4. As undergrounding is newsworthy in respect of the Beauly - Denny
line, it is worth noting the apparently deliberate misinformation
propagated so effectively by NG (despite repeated contradiction by
Revolt) at the Yorkshire line inquiries. That is the "sterilised swathe"
myth, which has passed (news174) to the Background Paper of the EC of
Dec 03: "environmental concerns over a 15-30 metre swathe of sterilised
land through the countryside". It is false! The Yorkshire land is farmed
as normal over the 400 kV cables at Newby - Nunthorpe.
5. At last! Prominent recognition that global human population should
be a consideration in discussion of sustainability. From BBC news
6.1.06, Population size 'green priority': Solving the Earth's
environmental problems means looking at global population, says the UK's
Antarctic chief. Professor Chris Rapley was writing in the first of a
new series of environmental opinion pieces on the BBC News website
entitled The Green Room. The article can be seen at
.
For more on world population see the UN site at
.
6. Renewable energy (wind farm) company CRE Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of
Scottish Power, wrote to Ofgem 23 Dec to seek broad compulsory powers.
Ofgem set out its preliminary view in a letter of 4 Jan and seeks
responses. An outline and my response are at APPENDIX D.
7. Stirling Council writes 5 Jan to say its Environment Committee is
requesting, in common with colleagues at Highland and Perth & Kinross
Councils, an extra three months to prepare its response to the proposed
Beauly - Denny line. Meanwhile it asks the full Council to reserve its
position. The Council's final submission will come at either its Special
meeting on 9 Feb or its scheduled meeting on 23 March.
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APPENDIX A Loch Luichart wind farm scheme (report from Sue Hopkinson).
Highland council PLANNING DEPARTMENT confirmed today that the Loch
Luichart Scheme would be classed as a Primary possible development
area under the putative Highland, Renewable energy Strategy. As the
developers' environmental summary claims it accords with the
developing HC Renewable Energy Strategy.
Primary is the second category of site, after Preferred. It has to meet
three criteria
+ abundant wind resources
+ relatively low planning constraint ie not a designated area
+ and lie within 15km of the existing grid network
If the Renewable Energy Strategy is confirmed , proposed developments
which meet the criteria will be very hard to oppose.
If the strategy makes it possible for a major industrial scale windfarm
on a site such as Lochluichart to be built, with no guarantees from the
developers that they would not put in for an expansion in the near
future and with the 15 turbine Corriemoillie proposal poised to apply
for consent. the strategy is deeply flawed. Lochluichart is a test
case in our area. Its visual impact on an area of outstanding natural
beauty is self evident. Its impact on the natural heritage will be
profound. It will have the effect of taming the wild landscapes of
Wester Ross, visible as it will be from Ben Wyvis, Beinn Dearg, the
Fannich and Torridon Hills.
The developers description of the site shows that they hold such
considerations in contempt, referring to " degraded habitat, "
"working landscape" an area between the " the semi-urban hinterland
of Inverness and Wester Ross".
The developers have been unable to confirm the nature of the
transmission upgrade that will be required to carry the power from
Luichart to Beauly .
As at this pm the Highland council Planners did not know that the
company had verbally by phone confirmed that they were about to put the
plans into Contin Post Office, would therefore need to readvertise and
that the new deadline is Jan. 28th 2006.
T hey recommended that holding objections be lodged with both the
Highland council and the Scottish Executive immediately...to be followed
up with more detailed representations.
Please sound the alarm and spread the word round all the networks.
Information is circulating, but not the urgency of the need for action.
As always we are talking about truly tall turbines 125m high. Right
across the path of the pylon line opposed by HBP!
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APPENDIX B Letter from Anthony Trewavas FRS 31.12.05
E.ON is the German utility that would like to build a wind farm near
Penicuik.
To see the full folly of government policy of encouraging wind energy,
one need look no further than E.ON's 2005 report on the difficulties in
trying to accommodate 50 per cent of wind-generated electricity in
Germany.
E.ON has expended large amounts of money to improve forecasting but
large errors wasting over 50 per cent of wind-generated power are
common.
Like Germany, any attempt to achieve government targets in the UK will
require total reconstruction of the grid. The current wind farm
proposals known to Transco will require £4 billion in grid rebuild set
in a background of current annual wholesale electricity value of
£10.5bn.
If wind farms were compelled to pay for grid reconstruction and the
necessary hot spinning reserve to keep the lights on (ie the true
economic cost) there would be no wind farms.
Money spent to ameliorate the unreliability of wind will not be
available to spend on reliable renewables such as tidal power or
Combined Heat and Power.
Throwing large amounts of money at unreliable sources of energy when
others with much greater reliable potential are simply starved of
investment is poor economics and appalling practice and will not be
followed by any other country governed with good sense. Wind farm policy
is simply gesture politics at its worst.
Anthony Trewavas FRS, Institute of Molecular Plant Science, Kings
Buildings, University of Edinburgh
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APPENDIX C End of the world isn't nigh by Philip Stott
Thunderer, The Times, December 29, 2005
FROM APOCALYPTIC media to the Queen's Christmas message, 2005 is seen as
the annus horribilis of anni horribiles.
So what would they have made of 1816? Drastic climate change afflicted
Europe after the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia the
previous year (92,000 people died). Frosts persisted until June,
reappearing in August, storms unleashed abnormally heavy rainfall
causing severe flooding - 200,000 people died. War had just ended. There
was famine, with food riots and violence. High levels of ash produced
glowering sunsets, affecting the palettes of painters such as Turner.
Rain kept Mary Shelley, John Polidori and their friends indoors,
resulting in Frankenstein and The Vampyre. All was doom. ?Was this the
ending of the world??
No more so, of course, than in 2005. The sin of ?presentism? - the
conviction that everything in our time is worse than at any preceding
period - is the curse of the age.
The year 2005 does not enter the top league of disaster years, even if
we include the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004. The 20th century alone
witnessed ten years in which those killed by natural disasters numbered
millions. Moreover, individual events in 2005 do not compare with past
horrors. How does Hurricane Katrina, bad though it was, match the
terrible 1970 Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan that killed 500,000
people? How does the Himalayan earthquake equate with the 1976 Tangshan
earth quake that destroyed 242,000 more, or the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake
that resulted in a death toll of 830,000?
We indulge, to use Michael Crichton's telling phrase, a ?state of fear?
whipped up by political activists. We need to regain our sense of
history and not be swayed by those who exploit today?s disasters for
their own agendas. Not to do so is an insult to those who have died in
the multifarious calamities of the past; it also denies our remarkable
capacity to adapt.
Many of us live longer, safer lives than ever before. But we must help
those still afflicted by this ever restless Earth to achieve similar
levels of progress. We cannot do this if we let Despair and Conspiracy -
the twin offspring of presentism - take root. We must dismiss the
nightmare demons that kill our will.
Philip Stott is Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the University of
London
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APPENDIX D Ofgem consultation on compulsory powers for CRE Energy Ltd.
Ofgem intends to review its position on compulsory powers for
generators. At present other priorities prevent this being completed
quickly. Meanwhile Ofgem's initial view is in favour of directing that
CRE should have the compulsory powers for five years, principally (it
seems) to bring them into line with established generators.
Compulsory powers can be available through generators' licences, after
the regulator has so directed. Transmission company National Grid has
used compulsory powers for purchase (e.g. for sealing end compounds) and
for wayleaves (e.g. for overhead lines). Such powers are conferred
respectively by Schedule 3 and Schedule 4 of the Electricity Act 1989,
which also provides for an objecting landowner to have a formal hearing
before a case is decided.
Compulsory powers (with safeguards) may be understandable for public
utility core networks, and perhaps also for brown-field sites for major
power stations. But applying them to force wind farm sites on objecting
landowners (and communities) looks altogether more sinister. And of
course it grossly distorts the negotiation process.
Wind farm sites, and specific turbine sites within a wind farm, are
matters of widespread choice throughout the UK. This is very different
from a restricted choice of brown-field site for a power station near to
a major conurbation. One essential difference between a wind farm
developer and conventional and/or nuclear generators is that the former
has a multiplicity of choice of potential sites. The use of compulsory
powers envisages limited choice for an essential public utility.
It would seem perverse to provide a wind farm developer with compulsory
powers to force a wind farm, or an extension of a wind farm or even
associated works such as access roads, upon an unwilling landowner, when
other sites and routes could be available. Otherwise the powers could be
used to over-ride local considerations in order to select precisely the
sites preferred for operational and commercial purposes.
Ofgem's letter says "... there is no objective justification for CRE to
be denied similar powers as compared with other companies ...". This is
a new situation. Ofgem should not feel bound by a sense of consistency
simply to pass on to wind farm developers the same powers enjoyed by
established generators. A distinction should be made between situations
(including wind farms in general) where there is a multiplicity of
choice, and those where the choice is more limited. I submit that there
is objective justification for distinguishing between types of
generators.
Ofgem should therefore not direct that the compulsory powers should be
given effect in the electricity generation licence of CRE, but instead
should, in the course of its review, recognise and make a distinction
between types of generators with regard to choice of sites. In any event
relevant bodies such as the CLA and NFU should be specifically
consulted.
Responses by 5 p.m. on Friday 17 Feb may be sent to:
Ben Woodside, Wholesale Markets, Office of Gas and Electricity Markets
9 Millbank, London SW1P 3GE
Electronic responses may be sent to
Ben Woodside
Please mark your response 'CRE SLCs 14 & 15 application'.
Please feel free to contact Ben Woodside on 020 7901 7471.
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--
Mike O'Carroll