Letter to the Irish Times

Posted by SONE on 14 May 2012 in Historic

Tagged with: David Sowby, Ireland, Irish Times, Nuclear power, Wind.

Sir, – In his letter, [May 9] Breandán Ó Mathúna rightly points out the disadvantages of the seemingly inexorable march of wind turbines.

He notes that those driving these projects stand to earn millions, and care nothing about the destruction of the Irish landscape. Furthermore, they care nothing about the need to provide back-up power for those many occasions when the wind doesn’t blow – as, indeed, occurred at breakfast time today, when wind contributed a mere 5 per cent of the demand for electricity.

It hardly needs saying that for every megawatt of installed wind turbine power there must be an equal amount of back-up power, which currently has to be supplied by burning fossil fuel.

Surely this isn’t the solution we want, is it?

The preferable alternative is nuclear power, which is reliable, cheap and safe. – Yours, etc,

DAVID SOWBY