Simon Jenkins's polemic against wind farms starts with the lament that "the green energy debate ... brings out the worst in everyone, especially landowners and lobbyists": would this include experienced journalists who, frankly, should know better (Bravo for nimbyism. What else will keep us from turbines and pylons?, 27 May)?
Jenkins warns that "the British Wind Energy Association (now euphemised as RenewableUK)" is not to be trusted as it "has 550 corporate members" with interests in wind energy. As the leading renewable energy trade association in the UK, formed in 1978, we have 648 corporate members. We are not "the British Wind Energy Association" because a third of our members have an interest in wave and tidal energy.
"Villages are being bribed with £20,000 a year in pocket money if they support permission for local turbines," Jenkins claims. "Farmers can retire to the Bahamas on the amortised value of a wind-farm cluster." Jenkins could mislead someone with no knowledge of wind energy in Britain into thinking that there is a wind turbine peering out of every nook and cranny.
In fact, England has only one large wind turbine per 100 square miles, 10 times less than the Netherlands or Germany. We are literally just starting to develop our wind resource, despite the fact that on average a wind turbine in the UK returns 40% more electricity than the one in Germany.
Jenkins argues that Britain's energy future "more probably lies in gas, sun and waves". The question is, why has no one noticed? We are now net importers of oil and gas and, in terms of other fossil fuels, import half of our coal. In terms of our solar resource, perhaps one need not be an energy expert to realise that this is not our best bet. Yes, Jenkins is right: we can and will be getting more energy from wave and tidal power; but this is 10 years down the line and then in conjunction with other renewable technologies, chiefly wind.
The story of the costs of wind energy which Jenkins weaves, apart from being exaggerated ("cash-eating machines"), omits one significant head ing. That of benefits.
Even at this early stage of deployment, the sector employs 10,000 people, and has generated an average day's-worth of electricity for 3m homes. It contributed 10bn units of electricity in 2010 alone, the equivalent of 4m tonnes of coal. These are widely available statistics. Perhaps Jenkins should consider how many green jobs and electricity his nimby campaign could cost the nation.
Contrary to his assertion, Europe is not scaling back on wind but has rolled out more wind farms than any other form of generation every year for the past seven years. As a consequence, not only have countries such as Spain secured 16% of all electricity from wind (the UK received 13% from nuclear in 2008), but Germany has 80,000 people working in the wind industry, Spain 60,000 and Denmark 30,000. We could and should be there with the best of them.