This artilce was submitted by Christina Morgan , Chairperson of the Somerset Branch of The Campaign to Protect Rural England. The views expressed do not necessarily represent our own. We are also happy to publish articles from the opposite standpoint. There is also a full discussion of some of the issues involved on our forum
Pointless desecration of our Somerset coastline
When we are young we want to save the world. Schoolchildren are regularly taught about global warming and saving the world’s rainforests but unfortunately judging from the sea of litter along our country verges rather less about looking after their own immediate environment. As a measure of our concern for the planet many join Friends of the Earth or Greenpeace as I also did in my teens and twenties. As our environmental awareness becomes moderated by realism, we come to understand that the best way we can save the planet is by caring for our small part of it and preserve it for future generations. This largely explains why I am a member ( and current chairman) of CPRE in Somerset.
It is this concern for the beauty of our Somerset landscape that compels me to oppose the massive wind farm proposed for the unspoilt coastline between Hinckley point and Kilve. These massive industrial structures will be visible from Exmoor, The Quantocks and much of Bridgwater Bay. However, unlike the existing looming bulk of Hinckley Point power station they will produce only pitiful amounts of electricity. Whether or not they produce any at all they will still make a lot of money for the company who is proposing to put them up and the landowner who is leasing the land. This is because the company will get massive government subsidies paid out of our higher electricity bills.
Our landscape should not be sacrificed to the short term gain of a few individuals and our countryside should not be seen as a depository for industrial structures which are grossly inefficient but somehow salve our conscience as we continue to use energy in a most profligate fashion. Nor should we ally ourselves with this government’s attempt to pay lip service to the Kyoto agreement and the concept of sustainability by putting all its support behind wind power. Truly sustainable solutions should mean that we don’t have to choose between protecting our greatest asset, our landscape and saving the planet.
What we should recognize is that we are facing an energy crisis in this country and it will be too late to do anything about it when the lights go out. At the moment we import oil and gas supplies from some of the most unstable regimes in the world and our own gas supplies are almost exhausted. However, the idea that wind power will solve the crisis is ludicrous. Just two statistics can demonstrate this. One is that the average annual output of all the Cornish wind farms would not be sufficient to get Eurostar from London to Paris. The other is that all of the electricity produced by Cornwall’s wind power in a year, can be produced by a conventional power station in a day.
So what can we do? Well, for a start we could stop wasting energy. So could the National Grid where transmission losses are nearly 30 times greater than all the wind generated electricity in Britain today. We can all turn off unnecessary lights, switch off appliances when they are not in use and stop lighting factories and offices all night. If we don’t, then we are playing into the hands of what CPRE’s president Sir Max Hastings called ‘the unholy alliance’ of government, the landowners and the wind energy companies all of whom want us to carry on using unlimited amounts of energy. To quote Sir Max Hastings again ‘Our grandchildren will think us mad.’
Christina Morgan
(Chairperson for Somerset branch of The Campaign to Protect
Rural England.)
