VVASP LIE No. 1

In the run up to the Global Wake-Up Call on Climate Change and the public information sessions being held by ScottishPower Renewables for the proposed Lenchwick Windfarm, this might be a good time to examine some of the abject nonsense talked by nimby groups like VVASP.

Like others of their kind, VVASP exists to mislead the public. They spout so-called 'facts' about windfarms in the knowledge that many people will accept what they hear at face value. This is why there is a great deal of confusion around about the uses and effects of wind power.

But when they're properly analysed, these claims made by VVASP and other nimby groups turn out to be wildly inaccurate.

Let's start with that old chestnut, that windfarms are 'inefficient' - that, in short, they simply 'don't work'.

Firstly, if anyone starts telling you that windfarms are 'inefficient', straightaway you'll know that they don't know what they're on about. The word 'efficient' does not properly apply to wind turbines, for the simple reason that wind turbines don't burn fossil fuel.

It is possible to talk about the 'efficiency' of coal-fired power stations, for example, or nuclear reactors, because they do turn fuel into energy.

Where coal-fired power stations are concerned, efficiency figures are surprisingly poor. When coal power stations first appeared in the late 19th century, they achieved about 1% efficiency. A century of technological advances meant that the efficiency of coal power stations, expressed as a percentage, was into the 30s. In the late 1990s, a Danish coal power station actually set a world record of 47% efficiency.

According to Hans-Dieter Schilling of Energie Fakten, the average efficiency of coal power stations around the globe in 2005 was 31%. Part of the problem with coal is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that in a 'closed-loop cycle' (like a power station) only a fraction of the heat produced during combustion can be converted into mechanical work. As the Science Museum points out, a typical coal fired power station converts 3.45 Mw of chemical energy from coal into just 1.2 Mw of electrical energy. The rest disappears up the chimneys as heat, meaning that coal fired power stations actually produce far more heat than they do electricity.

If coal fired power stations achieve efficiency in the 30-35% range, then they're not all that efficient, really - especially when you consider the extraordinary amount of pollution emitted by coal power stations.

So what about nuclear? You may be surprised to discover that both pressurised water reactors (PWR) and boiling water reactors (BWR) are limited to efficiency ratings of around 33% (source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology). That's not really a lot of payback for the enormous (and rising) costs of constructing nuclear power stations. Nor, for that matter, does it give us much in return for the thousands of years worth of hazardous waste they produce. Or for the safety risks. Or the problem of international terrorism.

So far, then, it would seem that the 'traditional' methods for producing electricity - such as coal and nuclear - only manage efficiency in the 30-35% range.

What about wind power?

Because no fuel is converted into energy, it is meaningless to talk about the 'efficiency' of windfarms. The proper term is 'capacity'.

A modern wind turbine has a maximum capacity of 2000 kilowatts (2Mw). It will operate for roughly 75-90% of the time, generating around 30% of its maximum capacity - or enough to suit the annual electricity of around 1,100 homes.

But that's just the annual average. It so happens that windfarms produce most of their energy in the winter months, when the demand for electricity is greater. As far back as 1995 (not a very windy year), it was noted that the average capacity factor of UK windfarms was 0.313 (which means that they produced 31.3% of their maximum capacity over the year). But during the winter months, this was as high as 0.445 - or 44.5% of capacity. Nearly as high as the world record achieved for coal fired power station efficiency!

There have been huge strides in wind turbine design since then. But even so, back in the Dark Ages of wind turbine design, when we needed the electricity most - in the winter - the turbines were achieving the efficiency equivalent of 44.5%. In other words, they were outperforming coal (roughly 35% efficiency), nuclear (ditto) and gas, which tends towards an efficiency of between 5 and 20%.

In that sense alone, windfarms are hardly 'inefficient'. They compare very favourably with coal and nuclear, and are considerably more 'efficient' than gas.

Added to which, they come with few or none of the serious downsides of their 'traditional' competitors - the import of fuels, massive problems of pollution and greenhouse gases, expensive operations and maintenance and longterm health and safety issues.

No - windfarms produce clean, green energy, and they do so at least as 'efficiently' - if not considerably more so - than those notorious polluters that the so-called 'pro-renewables' groups like VVASP much prefer.

But what about the 'unreliability' of wind power? As ever, when nimbies are confronted with the facts - the actual facts, not the made-up ones they're so fond of - they retreat into another set of myths and lies.

Nuclear power stations, for example, frequently have to shut down for safety or maintenance reasons. Or, as France discovered this summer, they have to gear down because environmental conditions make it dangerous for them to continue operating. THAT causes massive problems for the grid. But the nimbies want you to think that reliance on wind power will mean blackouts whenever the wind isn't blowing.

David MacKay, the UK government's new energy adviser, has warned that we could face blackouts by 2016 because too many nimby groups are holding up the development of green energy projects, like windfarms, with their ridiculous lies and shameful tactics. In other words, the government's chief expert believes that windfarms are at least part of the answer to the problem of electricity blackouts, not the cause of them.

And given that other countries, such as Germany, Denmark and Spain, are already producing large percentages of their domestic electricity needs - up to 40% in Spain - you have to wonder just how 'inefficient' windfarms really are, or rather, what the hell the nimbies of VVASP think they're on about, pretending that they don't work!

Fluctations in electricity demand - such as at breakfast time, or during the ad breaks in a popular TV show, or when the skies darken before a storm - are easier to accommodate when you have more small-scale power generators than just a few big ones. As noted above, a nuclear power station going off-line causes headaches as it is. But the variability of wind (in the UK - Europe's windiest country) would not stop all turbines across the UK working at the same time.

In fact, in Denmark and Germany, where windfarms are already well-established and producing large amounts of electricity, operators have noticed that neither major shifts in wind speed nor sudden increases in demand create major problems.

The future requires a mix of power sources - wind (onshore and offshore), solar, tidal - and a greater efficiency in the way we use electricity. What the loons of VVASP are in denial about is that this is where we're heading ... because there is no choice in the matter. It's a question of survival. And to pretend that windfarms 'don't work' is a mischievous and irresponsible stance to take. It's totally untrue.

Windfarms are easily as 'efficient' as nuclear or coal power stations, they're obviously a lot 'cleaner', they're cheaper to set up, easier to decommission, and they will create a more efficient (because less 'lumpy') distribution of available electricity across the country.

So - next time some cretin tries to tell you that windfarms 'don't work', or they're only '30% efficient', you have a choice of responses:

1) Yes, they don't work as badly as nuclear, coal or gas.

2) Who told you that rubbish? VVASP, I suppose?

3) You're a liar.