Broken reed

From: Charles Wardrop, Viewlands Road West, Perth.

EVEN if Mr John Chater’s “greeness” score for wind turbines’ manufacture (The Yorkshire Post, April 28) is fair, he omits both the cost in carbon dioxide (CO2) release in maintenance and demolition when their huge, non-recyclable blades need burial in landfill. Many gallons of lubricating oil, replaced yearly, further lessen their greenness.

Their installation and servicing emit vast amounts of greenhouse gases. For their foundations, masses of concrete are needed as well as new access roads. Losses of land reduce space for farming and steal much CO2-binding vegetation.

John Chater’s gloomy prediction that I distrust the science does not match in relevance his own omissions in consideration of all the relevant arguments against wind turbines.

These machines are a hugely costly broken reed.

From: William Loneskie,

Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire.

WIND farms are not ‘green’. Wind machines (they are not turbines in the engineering sense of the word) require gallons and gallons of gearbox oil, plus hydraulic oil.

Both oils have to be changed roughly every 12 months and flushing oil may need to be used. Wind machines need fossil fuel in their manufacturing and construction, requiring coal to make steel for the towers and oil to make the rotor blades. Rare earths are also used in direct drive wind machines, including Dysprosium, Neodymium, and Praseodymium. China supplies 85 per cent of the world’s rare earths. Recently Sky News reported on Chinese rare earth production.