THE MADNESS GOES ON

How do we know that the anti-windfarm fanatics are losing the argument?

Their lies get louder and stupider.

And so we kick off with our old friends, those scoundrels of the Renewable Energy Foundation (don't be fooled by the worthy-sounding name: they hate windfarms and really don't give a damn about renewable energy).

In their most recent press release, the running-dogs of REF have announced that, inspite of overwhelming public opposition, 70% of windfarm applications are getting approved. Naturally, this must stop.

Ha ha ha ha ha - ! How low can REF go? First of all, their claim that there is overwhelming public opposition to windfarms. Is there any evidence for this? When every poll and survey carried out reveals that a clear majority of UK residents actually support windfarms and even believe that the government should be subsidising them?

What REF presumably means is that, at the local level, the witless, self-centred nimby maniacs (who regularly trot out REF propaganda) all too often manage to whip up opposition by lying about windfarms and bullying anyone who expresses an independent opinion. But that's not an overwhelming majority. As we've pointed out elsewhere, nimby groups - the Lenches' despicable VVASP cabal of frauds and thugs being a good example - routinely exaggerate the level of local opposition to a windfarm. So, while nimby groups lie (to themselves and to everybody else) about a mythical "overwhelming majority", the genuine majority of British people, as demonstrated time and time again, are strongly in favour of windfarms.

Secondly, REF even lied about the percentage of windfarm planning applications which are successful. They did this by means of the standard nimby practice of massaging the figures. In fact, more like 42% of windfarm planning applications eventually receive approval, and the timespans involved are getting longer (see this DECC graph: https://restats.decc.gov.uk/app/pub/repd/tracking)

So, two lies for the price of one - not bad, even by REF's standards.

And, of course, the mealy-mouthed myth-mongers of REF keep insisting that wind turbines are "inefficient". It's a familiar claim, and it's b*llsh*t. Alan Whitehead MP has taken the trouble to investigate the relative "efficiencies" of various power generation sources. Amazingly, wind power comes out just behind gas in the efficiency stakes, and ahead of nuclear and coal. See here:

http://www.alansenergyblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/theres-inefficient-and-then-theres-really-inefficient

Bearing in mind the fact that wind power is now cheaper than nuclear, gas and coal, as well as being considerably safer and much, much cleaner, to discover that it's also more efficient than two of the others and almost as efficient as gas means that, well folks, it's a no-brainer. Wind wins, every time, and only a nimby deadhead with personality problems would disagree with that.

Oh, but some people don't like the look of wind turbines. One of these people is Sir Simon Jenkins, who just happens to be the chair of the National Trust.

Jenkins doesn't like windfarms at all, and he's made that perfectly apparent in the past. But he's gone a bit further, and has actually done something quite naughty. In an interview with the Daily Torygraph, he has claimed that the National Trust is now "deeply sceptical" about wind turbines (which Jenkins, in his almighty weirdness, thinks are a "public menace"). He also advanced the usual, phenomenally stupid and - as we have just seen - utterly WRONG claim that windfarms are inefficient.

What makes Jenkins' loopy interview with the anti-renewables Telegraph so odd is that the National Trust has previously made clear that it is broadly in favour of windfarms. And no sooner had Simon Jenkins blown off about wind turbines to the Torygraph, than the National Trust announced that its Chair was talking nonsense.

What the National Trust actually said was this: "our chairman has long-held views on wind that don't necessarily chime with our current views as an organisation on wind". And Jenkins' claims that the charity was coming round to his blinkered way of thinking? "No," says the National Trust, "our position hasn't changed on renewable energy."

Read all about it here:

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2152561/national-trust-rejects-chairmans-anti-wind-power-comments

This all illustrates one of the fundamental problems of the wind power debate. The anti-wind nutters simply cannot be trusted. They are absolutely incapable of telling the truth. Jenkins, just because he doesn't like windfarms, lies about the stance of the nationwide charity he chairs and makes out that his own bigotry and foolish intolerance is shared by the rest of the organisation (of course, he spilled this gibberish to the Daily Telegraph which has a pretty impressive track record of publishing misleading rubbish and blatant lies about windfarms, presumably because its fogeyish readership lives on country estates where, if you're not earning nicely from turbines, you're likely to oppose them because they "ruin" "your" "view"). The charity then has to set the record straight by politely pointing out that its chair is a madman with truth issues.

At the same time, the REF (why isn't Simon Jenkins chair of that fake charity?) publishes a press release claiming - wrongly - that there is overwhelming public opposition to windfarms and - equally wrongly - that 7 out of 10 windfarms get planning permission.

What is this? Is this what Britain has become - a nation of liars and their lies? A country in which anyone who has a bee in his bonnet about windfarms can sound off to the right-wing press, spouting whatever nonsense pops into his mind, to the detriment of our nation's future?

The roll call of traitors grows longer every day. The wild-eyed nimbies out there just love it when the REF - founded by Noel Edmonds - unleashes another dose of anti-wind claptrap, or when someone like Simon Jenkins grossly misrepresents the facts. That, folks, is why it's taking longer and longer to get wind turbine applications approved - because of the demented gobbledegook that these fools are spreading.

Do we want the rest of the world to march ahead with renewables, sustainability and a low-carbon economy, while we sit around telling each other lies about renewables? Is that what we want? To be in hock to Russia for our relatively-inefficient, increasingly-expensive and not-very-carbon-neutral gas supplies?

These people are insane, and if the Daily Telegraph and the Blimps who read it had a trace of patriotism in their sclerotic arteries they would start telling the truth about windfarms. They're cheaper, cleaner, safer and just-as-if-not-more efficient that the other sources. And the overwhelming majority of Britons like them. Get over it.

Oh, and the Co-operative Group currently expects to exceed its target of £1bn invested in green energy projects by 2013. There's just so much demand out there for renewables. In the real world, that is. Not the bizarre alternative universe inhabited by the likes of Simon Jenkins, REF and the nimby nutters of Middle-brow England.