CPRE Leicestershire

We have to admit that this is causing us headaches at our Branch Headquarters! Being in the middle of the country and with no large torrents or cascades of water tumbling from high ground we're naturally focusing largely on wind-power as a renewable energy resource, which of course means wind turbines. Since CPRE is perhaps the only significant Third Sector NGO campaigning to maintain a high quality of landscape appearance we face quite a dilemma. That is, how do you draw a line between what is aesthetically acceptable and what isn't when it comes to considering the pros and cons of wind-turbine planning applications? Do the demands of meeting renewable energy obligations ever outweigh landscape considerations? People tend to fall into two camps on this one: either they see wind-turbines as ugly monstrosities (while ignoring power stations, transmission lines and pylons) or they are seen as graceful examples of engineering designed to sustainably meet a very important need. In Leicestershire applications have been made for wind-turbines in the Vale of Belvoir and our CPRE Branch has opposed these vigorously on the grounds of scenic quality. What though of wind-turbine applications affecting what would qualify as marginal landscapes? Consider this example:

Is this bucolic scene really 'damaged' by the presence of the wind-turbines in the background? Somehow we have to temper our emotional and subjective feelings with objectivity. We are without doubt approaching an energy 'crunch' in the UK - that much was made clear to CPRE members and guests who visited the coal-fired Ratcliffe Power Station to the north of Loughborough. John Pacey, the Plant Manager at Ratcliffe, gave a graphic account of the parlous state of the UK power generation industry and to say that it was an eye-opener is an understatement. Ratcliiffe power station has managed to run for many years beyond its original design life and typifies what is happening throughout the conventional energy industry. Demand for power is increasing yet the resources to invest in new development are extremely limited. So, how will we meet our energy needs?

Ratcliffe Power Station

To meet the 'base load' of electrical energy required it looks as though a mix of nuclear power stations and coal-fired power stations will be the situation in the UK. Is nuclear power completely safe and can the dream of 'clean coal' be realised in short order? Taking a pragmatic approach, base load (i.e. the minimum requirement for electrical power) will have to be met largely by coal and nuclear. If we reject renewables in the form of on-shore wind turbines does this raise the possibility of more coal and nuclear power stations beyond the minimum necessary? Another factor to consider is 'energy obesity' or 'carbon obesity'. We simply cannot afford to be profligate by using energy unnecessarily. Turning lights off when not needed and replacing incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lights are obvious moves. What about those 'curtain heaters' some shops have above their doorways though? What about all those city and town lights left on blazing through the night? Is it feasible to do without streetlights between say midnight and an hour or so before daybreak? Should we expect a shirtsleeve environment in our homes by turning on the central heating at the first shudder of cooling in September - and then forgetting to turn it off when the warmth of late Spring arrives? Heaven forbid that we should wear warm clothes in our homes during the cold months! Profligacy is a tough nut to crack and we tend to change our habits only when it hurts our wallets and purses. That is, behaviour change is sadly down to the ability to pay in the main.

The principal problem with the lack of real progress in the area of energy supply is that of short-termism and vested interests. At the time of writing this (New Year 2009) the price of crude oil fell to around $35 a barrel in December 2008, having plunged from around $150 a barrel six months earlier. Cause for jubilation? No, oil is a depleting resource, now more than ever since a greater number of markets are competing for it, especially in the Far East. The availability and therefore the cost is bound to rise. Today (January 11th 2009) the average price is around the $40 a barrel mark. What we are seeing at the moment amounts to noise in the system - a flutter of ups and downs in a general upward dynamic trend. 'Peak Oil' is a very good stimulus for curbing the temptation to go for the easy way out in the form of nuclear and coal and concentrate on renewable and therefore sustainable energy supplies.

Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of time to endlessly debate whether or not we like wind-turbines, as though the main considerations were affective. By the time we experience brown-outs and drop-outs in the grid system things will be too late. Unfortunately, many won't come to their senses until they go to flick on the light switch to find that nothing happens. A useful analogy might be this - we are all in a rapidly sinking boat which has a leak and while the water's rushing in committees endlessly discuss the possibility of designing and building an elaborate bilge pump to bale out the water. While all this is going on others realise that the simplest and most effective way to solve the problem is to apply a patch to the hole in the hull. - that patch being the proven and established technology of wind-power.

The lights are unlikely to dim or go out in Germany, where 23,300MW of potential wind-power capacity has been installed, with another 32,000MW to be installed over the next decade. They have an established industry with a new and growing 'green' engineering skills base. In contrast the UK currently has 3,177MW of installed wind power - and we're one of the windiest countries in the Northern Hemisphere. The UK badly needs to develop 'clean tech' industries and not to do so is wasting a valuable opportunity. If permission for a wind-turbine installation affects you would it make a significant difference if it was a community-owned project in which you had a share rather than a private enterprise? Have a look at the website of energy4all and see what you think. While you are thinking remember that we are possibly teetering on the brink of the 'tipping point', where global warming runs away as an unstoppable process due to the release of fossil carbon in the form of the atmospheric 'greenhouse gas' carbon dioxide.

Here are a couple of short movies you really ought to watch...

Footnote: DeWind turbine components (Picture below) languishing in the yard of an engineering base in Loughborough. DeWind pulled out of the UK market in favour of concentrating business in Lubeck, Germany. Are there any wind turbine manufacturers in the UK supporting our economy? Iberdrola - Spanish. Vestas - Danish. Siemens - German. It is ironic that we have UK Renewables, an arm of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform based at PERA in Melton Mowbray. Not a lot to assist the UK economy seems to be going on there! The French have snapped up what is left of the UK's nuclear power industry and our capacity to design and engineer new nuclear power plants (Westinghouse UK) has been sold off to the Japanese (Toshiba). Likewise, who owns Npower? The German firm RWE. All but two of the big six electricity firms in the UK are now owned by German, French and Spanish companies. It's all going to go horribly pear-shaped fairly soon unless we learn to box a lot more cleverly than we have been doing recently.