Wind power is a noble dream but who’s going to pay for it?

Issue of the week Environment

I READ with interest your article entitled Fortunes are blowing in the wind ... (News, October 14). In the box headed “Wind energy factfile” it was stated that “there are about 750 wind farms in Scotland capable of generating up to 5,700 megawatts of energy, which is slightly higher than peak demand”.

The article omits to mention how much actual energy is produced by the plethora of windmills littering our beautiful landscape.

According to www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk, at 2.30pm last Sunday, 2.59 GW of energy was being produced by all of the UK’s windmills, and that equated to 7.85 per cent of demand.

Given there are around 9,088 windmills in total in the UK capable of producing 20.1 GW then it can be seen they are operating at 13 per cent of capacity. And given conventional power sources are needed to provide the other 92.15 per cent of demand then one surely has to wonder what the point of windmills are.

MSP Maurice Golden is quoted as saying: “Community benefit was devised as a means of helping small, rural communities mitigate the aftereffects of large-scale renewable energy developments. After all, it is only right that communities affected by wind farms receive due compensation.”

Which is all very well but it us electricity consumers who pay for it.

Brian Bell Kinross

In your article Scotland: the litter bin of planet Earth? (News Focus, October 14) you referred to the commitment made in January by Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham to reduce plastic waste in Scotland.

Twice since then I have asked the Cabinet Secretary to ban the deliberate release of balloons and sky lanterns in Scotland. The replies I received made it clear such a ban is not being considered.

Both these items pollute the environment, and pose a risk to animals and birds on land and at sea. If they fell to the ground immediately instead of floating into the sky and coming down perhaps many miles away, the people releasing them could be charged and fined for littering.

Over half of our local authorities already ban balloon and lantern releases from council land but this does not stop such events being held on private property including hotel gardens, sports grounds and shopping centres.

Banning balloon and lantern releases would not only save the lives of animals, it would reinforce the message that we must stop treating our environment as the litter bin of planet earth.

John F Robins Secretary

Animal Concern Advice Line

Although the recent report on climate change by the IPCC paints a bleak picture, our carbon-based future doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.

Whatever action we take, every pathway to limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius involves the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technology such as bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

The waste-to-fuel sector could hold the answer. Humans will always produce carbon-based waste from things like food, farming and sewage. Think of waste as an infinite resource, not as an inevitable overhead.

Instead of burning waste to produce electricity, which can be produced more cleanly using solar and wind, we should use waste to produce hydrocarbon fuels, offsetting carbon in the process.

Breakthroughs in synthetic-fuel production technology from anaerobic digestion mean we can now use the carbon and methane in everyday waste to make high-grade transport fuels, such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. Using the 31.8 million tonnes of biodegradable waste produced in the UK every year could displace over two billion litres of fossil fuels annually.

Matthew Stone Chairman, Renovare Fuels London