I assume Mr Bellamy is in favour of nice clean nuclear or coal-burning power stations in Shropshire then, rather than dirty old wind turbines ?

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His argument is based on turbines killing birds (and i think there is an issue with bats too) When does he start his campaign against cats, they kill loads of birds.

Put something on their doorstep that really will damage their health like Buildwas or cut their power off.

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I my experience people who ridicule protesters with terms like ‘NIMBY’ are ignorant of the consequences of wind turbines and are rarely threatened with one, let alone seven, 120 metre turbines on their doorstep.

The government’s wind policy has already led to a 14% increase in the price you and I pay for electricity and in Denmark, where naerly 25% of their overall generating capacity is provided by wind, not a single conventional power generator has been closed as a result of the installation of tens of thousands of these monstrous turbines. That doesn’t sound awfully ‘green’, now does it?

It’s time to think hard and intelligently about the issue. Just be sure to educate yourself first

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The problem with wind farms is that they are all built by these so called green companies at massive cost to the tax payer in sudsidies. Do you realy think that these companies are building them for our good and not their profit. Get real and smell the coffe.

One other point.

During their useful life they will only produce power for 30-40% of that time and if you have the wrong wind speed they dont produce anything.

Generally anything less than 8mph or more than 38mph then they dont work. It is a 100 Billion pound con by the government and we are paying for it.

By the way Global warming does not exist and never has. Climate change on the otherhand does and always has.

Anyone disagree with that. If you do how did the planet come out of its last ice age (don’t think there were many cars and plains and burning of fossil fuels then), of which we are seeing the disappearance of the last remnants of that now. Then again stick around for another 10,000 years and you will probably see the next one.

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vortex are a vocal minority

we want more wind turbines in shropshire

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Quoting DB on the above article, he says: “Windfarms are really bad news because government is saying we have all got to have wind turbines” – that’s no argument! He doesn’t even explain why they are bad news!

I think they look great, and would quite happily have on in my back garden. Vortex are NIMBY’s, through and through.

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By the way, the normal power stations turbines have to be kept running at a certain speed as they cannot just come on line, so they are using energy all the time that the wind farms are producing energy.

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I agree with Howard that ridiculing protesters, who are giving up their free time to make their views known, is only going to harden their attitudes.

Debates like this should generate light not heat.

It surely must be obvious to all that Shropshire people will only benefit from this discussion if the debate is rational and civil.

My concern with Dr Bellamy’s role in VORTEX’s campaign is his view on climate change, which -in light of the overwhelming consensus in peer-reviewed research papers- wilfully ignores huge amounts of evidence, which contradict his position.

For the dodgy sources, upon which Dr Bellamy based his much-repeated opinions on climate change, I recommend watching a video clip from the Channel 4 News, on 10 May 2005, where Dr Bellamy debated glacier melt and climate change with the environmentalist journalist George Monbiot.

Just key in ‘Monbiot Bellamy Are the glaciers melting?’ into Google to find the video.

Robert clearly shares Dr Bellamy’s views on climate change.

VORTEX, in an open letter to the Shropshire Green Party (on our website), said they ‘cannot give an opinion as a group on alternative energy sources or on Global warming, as these are not in [their] remit. Of course, individuals within the group will have their own widely differing personal views on this very important matter.’

As you are posting messages, Howard, would you say whether you share Dr Bellamy’s views on climate change after seeing the highly revealing Channel 4 exchange from 10 May 2005?

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robert makes a common and fair point about the turbines but the same can be said for traditional power stations burning coal, oil, wood or rubbish, because all the heat goes up the chimney they too only have an efficiency rating of about 40% and they too stop sometimes e.g. for maintenence etc

thats why we have a NATIONAL grid with lots of plant connected, so when its not windy in wales its still windy in shropshire or sunny in devon or burning in scotland etc, it all evens out

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Windmills. Invented in Iran, in the 7th century AD (the period usualy regarded as the dark ages.) As a technology, have always been unreliable. Fortunatly, when used for grinding grain, the Miller can work when the wind allows, and hold the produce in store. Although, the old saying…’nobody ever built a windmill, when they could build a watermill’ Holds true to this day. Oversize, Windturbines standing Idle around the country, will not produce the electricity we need, and are not taking us into the future. We should look to reliable, modern technology. Not look backwards to Wind Mill Technology.

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Windmills. Invented in Iran, in the 7th century AD

The wheel. Invented approx 5,000 years ago. Still pretty useful.

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Chris’ comments are really silly – comparing a modern wind turbine with a 7th century persian windmill is like comparing a rocket launcher with a catapult, the modern blades are manufactured by aeronautical engineering with the same skill as a modern aircraft propeller, they are computer controlled so they turn into the wind and maximise efficiency, they are state of the art manufacturing, high tech, green collar, british jobs for british workers, they make abundant clean emissions free electricity, yes they need a concrete base, just like a house or any power station does really, but they are pretty amazing things really, so please dont beleive the lies pedalled by the aesthetic objectors

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Patrick, that comment about Denmark is FALSE. After the OPEC oil shock Denmark went from importing 99% of all its fuel to being a net exporter of power, and north sea oil and gas. A key part of this was efficiency, but also a massive investment in wind power.

To say wind turbines have never caused an existing power station to close down, is like saying i bought a bike and it never caused me to get rid of my car, of course I own both and I use the bike for town and the car for long journeys or in winter, whenever im using my bike im saving energy and carbon, and its taking a car off the road but its not getting rid of the car completely.

What investing in wind power has meant that in countries like Denmark, Holland, Spain, Italy and Germany is that new coal fired power stations do not need to be built. Germany is one of the largest users of Wind Energy with 6113megawatts of Wind Turbines installed; this is assisting the German Government to close its nuclear power stations as part of their Green agenda. So it can offset base load there!

Alot of what gets thrown at wind turbines is false, some is true, they arent perfect, they are individually not a huge generator (its a bit like a bee hive, the collectiveness is what its all about in a power generating SYSTEM) I agree they arent the only type of power, and in some areas they are not suitable, they dont work in cities as the winds not right, and in national parks there is probably a good arguement that aesthetics is more important that economic/environmental/electricity needs, BUT they are a crucial part of the mix and the most economic renewable electricity by a mile.

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vortex are a vocal minority, i live in shropshire and i know me and my mates and most peopel i know in fact would welcome wind turbines in their back yard

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eiffel tower, empire state building, giraffes all tall yet beautiful

just like lovely wind farms which the people of shropshire would welcome

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“Local lad” for one-not a single job will be created by the construction of these turbines… If anything, jobs will be lost.

The Stud Farm next to the turbines would likely have to close. Noone is going to send a horse worth £££££ anywhere near these monstrosities after the research that had been done on the danger of abortions in wildlife.

Now thats 25 jobs gone.

Lets start on the local farmers who would lose a hell of a lot of money and probably be unable to afford to employ many locals to work for them. Call it ten people.

Thats 35 gone.

Then there are various other possible job losses that could occur. Such as the road closure that would happen for 6 months and mean that few of few pf the people driving past several local shops would drive past them. Therefore they lose out on business. Therefore they may struggle to stay afloat. Therefore more local jobs go.

And also the protestors are not rich local landowners. There are two sets of council houses within 1km of the site. The people living in them are extrememly vocal in opposition to this windfarm.

Don’t get my started on visual pollution, noise, infrasound, damage to wildlife, the danger of the construction vehicles or the fact that they actually create very little energy.

And whoever said something about the cars in picture? Well company are based in Cornwall (and the head office in Amsterdam), and the environmental consultants from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Now thats not environmentally friendly.

Now get your facts straight before you start argueing for the desecration of the landscape.

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toadie – read the previous posts. I didn’t say that about Denmark – it was “Howard” post number 5. I was actually disagreeing with him …along the lines of your post.

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It’s really sad that these people have been fed the wrong information and are so blindly against these turbines. How many of the villagers have been to visit a wind farm and talked to the people living near one. we regularly stay on a farm that’s near a wind farm and from personal experience i can say there is no problem. The comments about farms not being able to carry on and people losing jobs is rubbish.

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most wind farms are on agricultural land with animals right under them no bother, this abortion stuff is nonesense, go see one they are quite, less noisy than a road, you can hold a conversation without shouting right next to them, i’d rather have a wind farm than a noisy pub or club on my street, there are stict noise regulations and they comply with them, end of the noise arguement is dead

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These people don’t care about the future, that’s the problem. They just want their view unspoiled by progress. That is as far as they can see. So many of the vortex ‘facts’ are wrong, but the protesters aren’t interested in facts, they just don’t want the hassle on their doorstep, but will happily use the power from a powerstation at someone elses front door.

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i like the look for wind turbines too

they are engineering master strokes

pure genius how they even stand up in the wind its incredible design and structural engineering

we should be proud of the UK engineering skill

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PROBLEM: This is a critical moment for our economy, locally, nationally and internationally.

ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Wind energy and other renewables, coupled with massive government-supported energy conservation drives in businesses, hospitals, schools and homes could provide viable jobs for huge numbers of people in sustainable industries for years to come here in Shropshire.

PROBLEM: Despite the best efforts of the denial industry, just about everyone knows we need to act decisively against climate change. We thus have to deal with the recession and simultaneously get our economy onto a more sustainable, carbon-neutral or zero-carbon path.

ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION (among many): Wind power, combined with other renewables and energy conservation will

a) boost the local economy
b) potentially boost manufacturing in the UK
c) create jobs in installation, maintenance and servicing industries
d) make our local economy more resilient and diverse
e) make the economy less dependent on the industrial monoculture of a nuclear plant

To fight climate change, we need to put the UK on a war footing to get all the on-shore and off-shore wind, wave and solar systems in place that we need to achieve a low-carbon or even a zero-carbon economy.

If the UK achieved Denmark’s rate of growth on wind energy, we could create something like 200,000 jobs in that sector alone by 2020 – faster than we could build nuclear power stations.

We hope that ordinary people will start to demand faster action on turning our economy around.

PROBLEM: The BNP are growing stronger in Shropshire, using the economic situation to undermine democratic values of respect and tolerance and to try to turn ordinary working people against each other.

ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Creating very large numbers of jobs right now in sustainable industries, by investing government money in a green industrial revolution, is a good way for democratic politics to respond to the BNP’s message.

We don’t think that building nuclear power stations in 15 years’ time is the answer. After all, nuclear energy sustains far fewer jobs per megawatt than non-nuclear renewables.

To incentivise the building of job-creating renewable energy projects, Greens are campaigning for FEED-IN TARRIFFS that will give companies like Nuon the confidence and the incentive to invest their money into renewable energy and into a low-carbon future which benefits us all.

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According to today’s Independent newspaper, the Maldives – the island nation threatened by rising sea level as a result of global warming –is going to announce tomorrow that it will become the world’s first carbon-neutral country.

5 other countries (Costa Rica, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and Monaco) have signed up to a UN-backed plan to become zero net emitters of carbon dioxide.

It would be interesting to know what VORTEX members feel about these bold carbon-cutting targets and whether Britain should try to match their ambition.

It would also be great if VORTEX members could say what their views are on the urgency of climate change, and if they could suggest carbon-friendly alternatives to wind for Shropshire.

This affects ALL of us.

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