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25 January - Prime Minister asked about wind farm subsidies. |
Wind turbines are as well as, not instead of the power stations
Nigel Adams MP
Nigel Adams - Following the renewable energy subsidy review, will the Prime Minister assure taxpayers that the Government will focus their support on technologies that are cost-effective and reliable, such as biomass, rather than inefficient, costly, large-scale onshore wind farms?
You can watch Nigel Adams in action and the Prime Ministers response on BBC website and scrolling through to 19minutes 15 seconds, when the speaker introduces Nigel Adams and he asks his question.
1. Today's Prime Ministers Question Time - Wednesday 25 January
In a very confident simple question during today's Prime Ministers question time, Nigel Adams asked the Prime Minister if, following a recent review of renewable energy strategy there would be more focus on cost effective and reliable renewable energy that will be produced by bio-mass generation at power stations like Drax, rather than on more expensive and unreliable wind farms.
The applause he received in response to the question was a clear indication that he was fully supported by a large number of MP's.
2. Why the question is relevant to Selby District and North Yorkshire
Drax Power station is the largest generating facility in the UK, and its main fuel is coal. The power station produces about 15% of the electricity used in the UK, but in so doing it emits a large amount of CO2. However Drax is also at the forefront of reducing its CO2 emissions. It currently uses a mix of biomass from renewable sources with coal. This enables it to reduce overall CO2 emissions by more than 1.5million tons last year by producing 11.2% of its power by mixing bio-mass with the coal. This was equivalent to an average of 220MW of power, which can be turned on and generated as and when needed. To produce the same average power with wind turbines would need 350 turbines, each over 400 feet high. Even then they would not generate any power at all when the wind was below 9 miles per hour. The turbines would be addition to the power stations not instead of them. The power stations would still be needed to generate the power when there was no wind.
The energy review that the Prime Minister referred to was a review of the amount of subsidy given to various forms of renewable energy generation. The opportunity to comment has now closed. My input into the review was that the level of subsidy should take into account the ability of a renewable energy source to produce power as and when required. Power produced by wind turbines at 2 am when it is not required should not be worth as much as power produced at 6.30pm when the demand for power is at the highest levels.
All of this is important to Selby District because we have the ability to generate much more power from the use of bio-mass than we do from the wind. There is also the major advantage that the bio-mass generation will provide continuity of employment and even new jobs at the existing power stations like Drax, Eggborough and Ferrybridge.
Looking to the future Drax have approval to build a brand new 299MW power station that will run entirely on bio-mass. This power station on its own will be able to produce more power than the 400 wind turbines that the wind industry would like to install across North Yorkshire. At present levels of subsidy these 400 turbines would receive £100 million per year in subsidy which is paid by electricity consumers. ( Roughly £160 per year per person living in North Yorks).This level of subsidy for power that might be produced when it is not actually required is totally unreasonable and irresponsible. Building wind farms is often called a "wind rush" because it is all about making a fast buck, with this amount of subsidy you can see why.
Selby is actually a leader in renewable energy and with current projects the District should easily exceed its targets for renewable energy production by a very large margin. We can do this without destroying all of our countryside with hundreds of giant wind turbines which will bring no jobs to the area and produce very little power. The big wins for the District are by developing our major power stations to produce less CO2 , while generating even more power.
Wind turbines in one of the less windy parts of the country like ours simply do not make sense, even if we could afford them.
3. Gaining Momentum - 38 MP's meet to defend the countryside against the march of the wind turbines.
Wind farms are a great concept, until you start to look at the nitty gritty. The idea has been sold to us by a well organised industry which has become rich at our expense. A few turbines can be presented as an interesting engineering achievement. But we are now well beyond that stage with about 3,500 turbines installed in the UK. But the plan is for another 32,000 turbines of which 6000 would be onshore. That means that more and more wind farms are being proposed with larger turbines ever closer to homes. People simply do not want their home to be blighted by 400 foot high structures close by. With a further investigation you find that turbines can be so noisy that they stop people sleeping in their homes. People complain of health problems, they complain that they cannot move because nobody wants to buy a home near a wind farm. The complaints go on, and in so many cases the only person that people can turn to is their MP.
It is not surprising that a meeting of MP's to discuss the problems associated with
wind farms attracted 38 MP's, with a number of others sending their researchers.
The meeting was held on Tuesday this week. As more wind farm proposals come forward
more MP's will be joining the opposition to wind turbines.
Tory MPs urge Cameron to cut subsidies for windfarms
Read the story in the Yorkshire post - click here.
Cross-party MPs' group formed to fight wind farm expansion - report from 22 January 2012
MPs From All Parties In Bid To Halt Costly, Ineffective Wind Farms
More links and information