Article by www.thisisdevon.co.uk 11 January 2010

Just before Christmas I could not believe the "front" of a wind farm supporter whose letter condemned an objector for using misleading statistics when arguing against wind farms.

The wind industry is founded on highly-spun, misleading statistics.

For example the "number of homes" figures developers love conveniently omit to mention that homes account for only 29 per cent of electricity use.

Until the Advertising Standards Agency was persuaded that it was not possible to selectively replace electricity that would have been generated in a coal-fired power station, developers claimed carbon offsets double what is now allowed.

But because of the intermittent, highly variable nature of the electricity produced by wind farms, high carbon costs are incurred in keeping the grid stable. Fossil-fuelled power stations have to be turned up and down rapidly which, a retired power engineer told me, "is like driving a steam train around the M25 in rush hour". These costs are never accounted for.

Developers also conveniently do not deduct the carbon cost of building wind farms from their claimed carbon savings. Turbines are carbon intensive to produce and deliver, and each has to stand on a highly carbon intensive reinforced concrete base. Thousands of tonnes of crushed stone are used to make tracks to link them together and pads for cranes to erect them.

Even if you accept the unrealistically high carbon offsets developers are allowed to use, it can take years before this carbon debt is repaid.

Data from countries that have adopted wind farms on a large scale seem to show there is little if any net carbon saving from wind farms and, rather than increasing energy security, they increase the need to import gas - the least secure fossil fuel.

Hopefully a new government will not continue to dismiss inconvenient data as the present one has done. The great wind farm scam will then be exposed and our countryside will no longer have to live with the threat of these white elephants destroying the best of Britain.

Brian Skittrall

Bozeat, Northamptonshire