Wind farms just part of answer

Wind farms just part of answer

December 11, 2007
OpEd by Patrick Moore

I imagine there is a celebratory mood among renewable energy advocates to the news that 7,000 wind turbines will be built around the coast.

We are told this much power will run every home in the country, at least when the wind is blowing.

But there is the multi-billion-pound rub – the wind is only available about 20 per cent of the time. It is still necessary, no matter how many wind turbines are installed, to be able to back up every single windmill with reliable power such as fossil fuel or nuclear.

The Government is putting the cart before the horse by announcing a huge wind energy programme before getting on with building new power plants to both replace aging ones and to add new power for the growing economy.

Just look across the Channel for goodness sake.

There is France with 80 per cent nuclear and ten per cent hydroelectric power.

That gives it the second LOWEST carbon-dioxide emissions by population in western Europe.

Right next door, Germany has poured billions of euros into wind and solar energy and yet they have not been able to shut any of their power plants.

German CO2 emissions by population are already half again as high as France and about on a par with the UK.

Germany is importing more than two billion euros of nuclear energy from France, the only European country with a large excess of power.

The big lie being spread by my former colleagues in Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth is that wind and solar can replace coal, nuclear and hydroelectric energy. But wind and solar power are both intermittent and unreliable.

This is simply the nature of the technology. There are only three available technologies to produce main power: Hydroelectric, fossil fuels and nuclear.

As there is no substantial hydroelectric, the choice is between fossil fuel – coal or imported gas – and nuclear.

Clearly nuclear is the choice from a climate perspective.

My advice is to look to France, Sweden, and Finland for the right model – balancing energy needs with climate protection.

All three have chosen a mix of nuclear and hydroelectric as the way to reduce carbon emissions while at the same time providing reliable power.