SPOT THE FALLACY

Can you spot the logical flaw in this argument?

To meet all our energy needs we would need to build thousands of windfarms, effectively covering the available land with them. When the wind isn't blowing, we'd still need backup supplies, probably from coal-fired, gas-fired or nuclear power stations. Therefore, wind power is completely pointless.

Did you spot it?

A lot of opponents of the Lenchwick windfarm - and numerous others, including windfarms in general - advance an argument like this. And, at first glance, it's a compelling one.

Until you remember that NOBODY has ever suggested that we should try to generate ALL our ever-growing electricity needs from wind.

There's a kind of absolutism creeping into the debate. This is not helped by scientists of various backgrounds who each espouse their own preferred 'solution'. Some will insist that only nuclear can provide for our needs. Others will advance solar power. Some like to think that, with the right advances in carbon-capture technology, coal could again be king. So obsessed are certain experts with their chosen source that they'll readily ridicule any of the others.

Anti-windfarm protest groups, like VVASP, can pick and choose quotes from these 'experts', leading to the kind of argument outlined at the top of this post. In its simplest form, the argument goes:

1) To supply all our electricity we'd need too many turbines
2) One day the wind won't blow, and then we'd need something else
3) Windfarms don't work

Now, can you remember a time when all our electricity was generated from a single source, be it nuclear, coal or gas? No?

So why is wind energy seen as such a failure? What is this nonsense about wind being too unreliable to supply all our needs? Who said it was going to in the first place?

It's obvious that our electricity will need to be supplied by a variety of sources - wind, wave, tide, solar and geo-thermal - in the future. Wind just happens to be one of the easiest, and cheapest, to harness.

But anyone who thinks that windfarms are being put forward as the sole answer to all our future needs is not a very serious person and should be kept in a safe place away from society. Windfarms are a major part of the solution. They have been proven to work. They are a big step forward, towards a renewable future.

There will be other sources, but it's about time we admitted that coal, oil and gas are on the way out and that nuclear just has too many dark secrets and unresolved issues to be safe.

What is so depressing is that, because some people feel the need to cling to the certainties of the past, and to deny that they played any part in the climate change crisis, they will spout no end of silly, stupid, illogical, irrational annd unscientific arguments against the solution.

Windfarms are a vital part of our future. There is no choice in the matter.

Get used to it.