HOW COME ...?

In the whacky world of the nimby, the laws of physics don't seem to apply.

Many moons ago, we discussed one prime piece of idiocy voiced by a local nimby. When told that a conversation can be held at normal volume immediately underneath the blades of a busily working windfarm, this particular nitwit said:

"Ah yes, but sound waves travel outwards, so wind turbines get noisier the further away from them you are."

This is a rather typical nimby tactic - just say something stupid, and the person you are talking to will shut up and gawp hopelessly or spend just long enough trying to figure out what the hell you're on about that you can then move away and bother somebody else. Or (worst scenario) they'll laugh at you, because what you just said was so blisteringly, pulverisingly silly that the only reasonable reaction is to giggle.

Sound obeys the inverse square rule. Close to a sound source, that's where you hear the noise. It drops away extremely quickly as you move away. And that's a physical law. It's immutable. As far as this universe goes, that claptrap about windfarms getting noisier as you move away from them is sheer balderdash.

But these nimby myths have been spreading, egged on by dangerous groups like the Renewable Energy Foundation and the right-wing papers which publish their misleading remarks. They've even got as far as our democratically-elected representatives.

Turning, once again, to the silly debate held in Westminster last week, we find that Andrea Leadsom MP preferred just to repeat the nimby nonsense she'd heard than to do some actual research. As a consequence, most of what she said made no sense whatsoever.

Take this, for example:

"Turbines also have an aural impact. They are audible at a great distance - potentially, as far as two miles, depending on the landscape. I have been given some wonderful descriptions of the sound. It is described variously as like an aircraft continually passing overhead, a brick wrapped in a towel turning in a tumble drier, someone mixing cement in the sky or a train that never arrives. Wind turbines are often noisiest at night, and the sound is constant. One cannot get away from it and it does not stop."

Some alarming images, there ("someone mixing cement in the sky" sounds pretty apocalyptic), and just the sort of thing to get the Telegraph hot under the collar. Of course, the best way to determine whether any of this is true or not is to stop listening to nimbies telling you about it and go to a windfarm. At night, if possible. See if you can hear this brick-in-a-towel-in-a-tumble-drier. You might be surprised.

Anyway, rather than check this out, Andrea Leadsom went for an even more interesting nimby manoeuvre. When a fellow MP (who actually had a bit of a grasp of the science) pointed out that Leadsom had oversold the negatives, Andrea replied:

"I slightly take issue with the point that my hon. Friend made about the amount of time that wind turbines are actually working. The latest statistics show that, on average in the UK, they operate between 25% and 30% of the time."

Her fellow MP pointed out that "The figures across the board show that the turbines operate about 70% to 80% of the time."

So who's right? Well, guess what - the latter. Wind turbines work about 80% of the time. But wind being variable, their load capacity is about 30%, meaning that, over a whole year, the average turbine will produce 30% of what it could produce if it were able to work full pelt all of the time. This compares well with conventional power sources and is considerably more "efficient" than the average motor car.

But Andrea Leadsom didn't understand any of this. She made the usual nimby mistake of confusing load capacity (30%) with the amount of time the blades spend turning round. In short, she didn't know what she was on about.

Even so, how can the notion that wind turbines only work for 25-30% of the time (or, more realistically, 70-80% of the time) square with the idea that the noise they make is constant - "One cannot get away from it and it does not stop." How can that be? Was Leadsom trying to imply that, even when they're not actually doing anything wind turbines sound like aeroplanes constantly passing overhead? Is that possible?

No, of course it isn't. It's nimbyism. Like VVASP's early claim that the "constant noise" of wind turbines cause hair loss, premature ejaculation and worldwide famine. Even though wind turbines "don't work".

Leadsom also ignored her own government's figures and proceeded to claim that "wind energy costs about two and a half times the price of nuclear energy and twice the cost of traditional fuel sources." Her own government disagrees, because it's not true (think about it - how on earth could wind energy cost two and a half times as much as nuclear? How? Come on, how?). Leadsom also slipped in a odd remark which seemed to imply that the "fuel" used by wind power is expensive.

Anyone been paying over the odds for the wind lately?

But perhaps her crowning moment came after she had complained that the UK receives no benefits whatsoever from the manufacture of wind turbines. Another MP stood up and pointed out that wind turbines were manufactured in his constituency. Here's what Andrea Leadsom said next:

"That is music to my ears, and I hope that we will progress with that and go on to manufacture even more wind turbines and other sources of renewable energy in this country."

Hang on a sec - wasn't she supposed to be against wind turbines? Wasn't that why she called the debate in the first place? And yet now she wants Britain to be manufacturing more of them?

This is what comes of having no idea what you're on about.

A debate about wind power is a good thing, surely. But it has to be honest and it has to be informed. VVASP always refused to hold a debate because their cretinous lies would be challenged. Andrea Leadsom calls a debate and talks a lot of nonsense. How does that help Britain's future?

We've got to put a stop to all these nimby lies, once and for all. I mean, for heaven's sake - even MPs are beginning to believe them now. Of course, if they got off their complacent backsides and asked some intelligent questions, they wouldn't spout so much hogwash.

But we as a nation deserve better than this. We deserve an informed, sensible, rational, evidence-based debate. Which is what Leadsom massively failed to deliver last week.