UKH

In reply to UKH News:

RES values the work of the John Muir Trust in protecting Scotland’s wild land. In this instance, the Dunmaglass Wind Farm is not within designated wild land and is approximately 7km away from the nearest Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) Search Area for Wild Land. We have carefully selected the site which lies adjacent to one of the largest Highland Council Preferred Areas. Our site selection criteria seeks to balance available wind resource with environmental, technical and other constraining factors to ensure our projects have a minimal impact on the environment. There are many aspects, including landscape, to consider when indentifying a suitable site. Our aim is always to design low impact projects that make an important contribution to renewable energy generation and the development of a low carbon economy. Climate change is already threatening our wild landscapes and habitats and renewable energy is an important way to reduce carbon emissions.

(Rachel Anderson, RES)

In reply to Rachel Anderson (RES):

Since when does wild land need designating?

You can dress up your profit making scheme all you want but that's all it is. Would Sir Jack put up a windfarm in front of his house in the Bahamas? Why does he think it's okay to put up these monstrosities here, would it be anything to do with the millions he's due to receive?

From Carn na Saobhaidhe (on Jack Haywards Dunmaglass estate) you can see the Millenium windfarm on Meall Dubh across the Great Glen. Vice versa means that's not low impact. Our recent cold snap yet again showed the failings of windfarms, I'm glad to see that people are beginning to realise they and the land is being fleeced for profit, hopefully the wind industry can be stopped before its turbines dominate the scenery in all directions. Have a look at the view from any of the hills along the mid M74 corridor if you want to see what 'too much' looks like.

My first post on UKH, good start

UKH news item: "The contribution that Dunmaglass will make towards meeting Scotland's ambitious renewable energy target is significant"

UKH - that statement needs to be attributed, please. Who made that claim?

Cough, splutter... it might make a contribution to the figures on paper, but in practice is it going to work at anything more than 30% of capacity?

Minus anything lost in transmission.

What we're losing to make way for this far outweighs any benefit there might be -might be – in power generation.

Rachel: "Our aim is always to design low impact projects that make an important contribution to renewable energy generation and the development of a low carbon economy."

Rachel, could you please tell us how many conventional power stations will be closed as a result of this development? Please be careful to include their names, and to include a proposed closure date.

"We have carefully selected the site which lies adjacent to one of the largest Highland Council Preferred Areas."

You mean it's not actually in the Preferred Area?

Oh.

Rachel: "Climate change is already threatening our wild landscapes and habitats and renewable energy is an important way to reduce carbon emissions."

Does that make it okay to dig wild landscapes up, turn them into construction sites, because they're already under threat? You mean they've lost their value as wild landscapes because the world's undergoing climate change?

Angry? Me?

In reply to John Manning: Hi John. That's my statement. What does 'significant' mean though? Yes it is nebulous and unquantified, since no one really knows down to the last watt what contribution Dunmaglass will actually make. But I don't think it can be argued that a wind farm of this size will have an 'insignificant' impact on Scotland's power-related carbon emissions, it will make a difference of some sort. The bigger the power station, the larger its share of the total pie. To acknowledge that is not to endorse wind farms over other forms of power generation.

The appropriateness of the location of this particular wind farm is a totally different question, and clearly not one that can be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Many people say the costs outweigh the benefits in this case, and surely most of these objections hinge on the site, not on the specific type of machine that is to be built there. If RES had decided to build the same thing offshore instead of up a mountain then there would be no news story on UKH. Unless they'd picked Loch Scavaig or the coast of Harris (note to RES; please don't).