The surreal world of wind energy schemes

I WAS in a surreal Mabinogion or Under Milk Wood type dream, wherein a wind energy developer

rendered me gobsmacked. Welsh Government “pre-assessed” status (Future Wales Plan 2040) afforded his company “presumed consent” to place 250-metre-high turbines across Conwy’s hinterland, barely 700 metres from our kitchen table.

Bizarrely, this status, based on an evidential basis we still await full sight of, was sanctioned in a global pandemic. Not apparently known to relevant politicians including those whose parishes are sacrificed as collateral damage to save the planet – and finance the unfaltering altruism of multi-national hedge fund and venture capitalists.

But for good neighbours who had received a “Noise Agreement” offer with a financial incentive, we still wouldn’t have known; while negotiations with landowners began months earlier. An example of “public engagement and consultation” skills requiring years of university education.

We are bound in a Sisyphean Greek fable, blindfolded, completing a complex – extremely interesting – jigsaw, with the inevitable critical pieces lurking in the dark corners of the sofa.

“Clean energy?” has been added to my exclusive Mastermind repertoire of specialist subjects. Topics include constraint payments, wildlife and ecology impacts, flooding risks, overseas production, the mining of precious metals, visual and noise pollution … and all the pioneering developments in more effective and efficient clean energy options.

A lifetime since I was in school, even I can see that the maths nor the

armageddon is fast approaching.

Unbelievably this is due to the insane and myopic policy of pursuing large scale wind and solar farms in the UK; it is chickens coming home to roost for Bumbling Boris and his fantasy Saudi Arabia of wind power. The eye-watering increases in the cost of energy are simply the writing on the wall, and there is far more trouble to come in the form of brownouts and blackouts, unless the Government takes immediate action.

Thankfully there is a solution (and salvation) to this problem and it is in the form of fracking. Controlled and sensible fracking has the potential to turn the UK economy around – the same as it did in the US – but only if our useless political representatives have the intellectual capacity and backbone to do so. Gas-fired power stations of the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) variety are relatively cheap and quick to build, being efficient and are far cleaner than their coal-fired cousins.

The UK has the ability to be self-sufficient in energy and not have to rely on foreign countries or interconnectors (sea-bed cables) which should only be used for exporting energy at a profit.

Until truly green forms of generating electricity such as nuclear fusion materialise, current generation policy should be based predominantly on natural gas and tidal generation. Good grief ,we do live on a land mass surrounded by water with the potential to generate significant amounts of electrical energy.

Dave Haskell Brithdir, Cardigan