Wind energy is just a waste of our money

WHAT a windfall for the owners of Airtricity?

Of course the €2 billion price tag was largely based on Government regulations requiring the ESB to enter long-term contracts to buy the output from windfarms.

In the ESB’s 2006 annual report, the chairman states that “these contracts are worth €2.5 billion in today’s money and most of these schemes would not get off the ground without these contracts”.

This massive transfer of wealth from ordinary consumers to a few enterprising individuals could be well worth it for the sake of major environmental benefits. But sadly, there is none.

Unfortunately, the wind does not blow on command and therefore most wind power is totally useless because it is produced at times of low demand.

Even when wind power is produced at peak demand, it’s pretty worthless because, given its unreliability, it must always be fully backed up by conventional power plants permanently fired up and belching out CO2.

Consequently, there is no saving on fossil fuels, no reduction in harmful emissions and the combined carbon footprint is actually much worse than before.

So far the wind industry’s hype has persuaded our policymakers to hand over huge amounts of our money. This windfarm madness should stop now.

Dick Keane

35 Silchester Park

Glenageary

Co Dublin