Energy: Wind Farms

Lord Rowe-Beddoe Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rowe-Beddoe]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for securing this short debate on a subject which clearly deserves a considerably longer hearing.

The current plans to construct a further 600 to 800 onshore turbines in mid-Wales are unacceptable on two counts. First, there is the wanton destruction of an extraordinary environment, which has already been referred to. Secondly, there is the further development of an inefficient and absurdly expensive solution to achieving the targets for CO₂ emissions that the UK has undertaken, and for increased use of renewables.

As the Member for Montgomery said a few weeks ago in the other place, mid-Wales truly,

“is a place of great beauty … it underpins the most important and largest part of the local economy—tourism”.—[Official Report, 10/6/11; col. 347WH.]

Although mid-Wales constitutes some two-thirds of the land mass of our country, its population is small and, apart from sheep farming, tourism is the only other major sector upon which the economy is dependent. In addition to these 800 new onshore turbines, there is the installation—as has been mentioned—of a 20-acre electricity substation and 100 miles of new cable, mostly carried on 150-foot-high steel towers. No wonder the local populace is protesting.

According to the Country Guardian website, by August this year 275 different groups had been formed throughout the UK to object to the impact of planned wind farm developments, 30 of which are in Wales. That is 11 per cent of the total, which is disproportionate to the 5 per cent of the UK population that the area represents. It is too easy for Government and other industrial protagonists of this vandalism to characterise the protestors as guilty of nimbyism. That is a slanderous description. Their approach is not “nimby”; if anything, it is “nioby”—not in our back yard, and not in the nation's back yard that is the beautiful and unique topography of these isles, which both this Parliament and the devolved Administrations must have a primary duty to protect.

Financial analysis is available to all. Anyone can see that the costs far outweigh the effective generation of electricity in comparison to other sources. What can Government do to take the heat out of this most contentious issue and give leadership to the development of alternative forms of electricity production? It will not surprise your Lordships if I return to the Severn barrage, a mega-project that would generate more than 5 per cent of the total UK electricity requirement by using the power of the second-largest rise and fall of tide in the world. Ironically, this year is the 100th anniversary of the first reference to a Severn barrage for energy purposes, made by a Frenchman in 1911. Since then, between 1926 and 1989, there have been many government and privately-sponsored investigations. Since the Sustainable Development Commission’s report of October 2007, which was largely constructive in its approach, Governments continue to be reluctant to give the scheme their backing.

Despite past cross-party support in the other place, led at that time by the previous Secretary of State for Wales, little has happened until now. A private sector consortium, Corlan Hafren, has set about the task of making it happen. It should be supported. Its plans appear to incorporate the most recent engineering developments, with environmental outcomes that are,

“no worse than at present, and possibly better”.

In addition to its extraordinary relevance to achieving UK targets, the construction and associated infrastructure of the barrage would be set to create 100,000 jobs. Perhaps the Minister would care to note the Financial Times report of 24 November 2010, in which the Secretary of State is reported as saying that,

“there would be no state funding for the Severn tidal power project”.

The Energy Minister followed this by stating:

“My officials are talking to private sector consortia about their ideas”.

Later, the Secretary of State is reported to have said:

“I think the Severn barrage will eventually happen and will provide about 7 per cent of all the electricity in the UK. When it does it will involve a lot of different businesses. But investors will need assurance that the government is behind it”.

Therefore, the question is: when?

Finally, at the other end of the scale is biomass. In Wales the use of biomass fuel lags well behind that in Germany and other countries. The technology is proven, there are grants and funding incentives and a supply infrastructure is in place. Wales has an abundant timber resource: 13 per cent of its land mass is woodland, of which some 75,000 hectares is unmanaged private woodland. Biomass systems are not designed just for individual domestic use. Already there are examples of their use in Wales by organisations such as the new Rhondda hospital in Llwynypia and the Office for National Statistics in Newport. The Welsh Government happily lead the way, with a biomass system installed in the Senedd building.

There are alternatives. Let us pause and reconsider the effects of these policies in destroying our beautiful countryside. If we do not, the ugly results will be the inheritance of future generations at grossly unacceptable cost.