Turbine foes under fire (From Stroud News and Journal)

Turbine foes under fire

AN engineer from Coaley has hit back at those worried our hilltops will soon be home to more wind turbines.

Recently in the SNJ Nympsfield resident Bernard Freeman spoke of his fears at changes to Gloucestershire County Council's structure plan, which would make it easier to erect giant turbines in areas currently protected from development.

But Osmond Goring, an exponent of water power said people should consider what other options are available.

He said critics of wind turbines are only painting half a picture and it is no good arguing against something without looking at the impact of the alternatives.

"Some people don't like wind power and that's fine but just where would they like their power to come from?"

He said if we relied on the French model of favouring nuclear power we would need a power station roughly every 20 miles along the southern coastlines. "To meet the demand we would need at least 45 new nuclear power stations," he said.

"It would be no good putting them in west Wales or Scotland, because that is not where we have the demand and we already lose between nine and 15 per cent of the electricity we produce transporting it around the national grid."

He said any new system of electricity generation, be it nuclear or off-shore wave power, would need massive pylons and overhead cables to get the electricity where we needed it.

"In terms of visual impact I don't really see the difference between that and wind turbines," he said. "As long as society goes on demanding more and more power we are going to have this problem."

Mr Goring suggested small-scale community power generation could be a way forward. "We should be looking at towns having their own source of energy, whether it be turbines or biomass," he said. "Otherwise we will always have this vast, inefficient network and this vast eyesore."