Christopher Booker
4 Feb 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/03/nbook103.xml
Brussels steps in - to stop a wind farm
A delightful row has blown up in Scotland over the plan to erect 181
600ft wind turbines on the Hebridean island of Lewis.
For years we have been told how this largest onshore windfarm in Britain
was going to help the UK to meet its now mandatory EU target to produce
20 per cent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 - even though
the 200 megawatts of electricity the turbines would intermittently
produce represents only a quarter of the output of a modest-sized
gas-fired power station.
But the £500 million scheme, which would involve building 100 miles of
new roads, has aroused vehement opposition not only from the majority of
the island's inhabitants but from an array of conservation bodies, led
by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
They are horrified at the immense damage this vast industrial
installation would do to wildlife over a huge area of
specially-designated peatland, not least to Scotland's largest
population of golden eagles.
Now the "Scottish government" (as it likes to call itself), which was
shortly expected to give the go-ahead to this scheme, has been told by
the European Commission that this would be in serious breach of various
EU environmental directives.
So, on one hand, the EU exhorts us to build thousands more giant
turbines, as the only way to fulfil our environmental obligations on
renewable energy.
On the other, when a highly unpopular project is proposed to do just
that, the EU turns round to say that this would be so environmentally
damaging that, if the project goes ahead, the UK could face a colossal
fine from the European Court of Justice.
If anyone suggests that, under the EU, you cannot win, who could
disagree?
--
Regards
Bonzo
"Attributing global climate change to human CO2 production is akin to
trying to diagnose an automotive problem by ignoring the engine
(analogous to the Sun in the climate system) and the transmission (water
vapour) and instead focusing entirely, not on one nut on a rear wheel,
which would be analogous to total CO2, but on one thread on that nut,
which represents the human contribution." Dr. Timothy Ball, Chairman of
the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP.com), Former Professor
Of Climatology, University of Winnipeg
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