Your correspondent George Debono (June 25) criticised the Maltese government, the Malta Environment Planning Authority (MEPA), and the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) regarding the (draft) report by Malta to the European Commission on the implementation of Directive 2001/177/EC.
His article condemns what he calls the 'negativism' and 'persistent bias' against land-based wind turbines due to exaggerated objections as high visual impact, limited land availability, environmental restrictions, impact on bird-life, and "most inexplicable of all" public opposition.
In my view, however, the government and the compilers of the report have done well. Their 'negativism' is more than justified and their objections are certainly correct and proven by facts.
A leading exponent of wind-energy, Denmark, has over 6,000 wind-turbines, and yet because of the variability and intermittency of the wind, no conventional power-plant has been shut down. The Danish government's National Environment Research Institute reported that (in spite of all the nation's wind-turbines) in 2003, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 7.3 per cent over 2002 levels. This was confirmed at a conference in Copenhagen in May 2004 by the head of development from the Danish energy company Elsam who stated: "Increased development of wind turbines does not reduce Danish CO2 emissions."
In 2002, according to the UK Department of Trade and Industry, 1,010 wind-turbines produced 0.1 per cent of British electricity. The British government hopes to increase the use of renewables to 10.4 per cent by 2010, requiring many thousands more wind-towers. The main reason given by the British government for installing wind power is that it will save carbon dioxide emission and consequently reduce the rate of global warming.
The British government's own prediction for CO2 saving by renewable electricity (mainly wind) in 2010 is 9.2 million tonnes which sounds very impressive to the British public. But in fact this figure is less than four ten-thousandths (0.0004) of global man-made CO2 emission. If British wind-turbines have no chance of altering the world climate, in this respect a Maltese wind farm would be a laughable non-starter. But the one thing it would alter - Malta's rural beauty (or, what's left of it) - is no laughing matter.
The construction of wind-towers would certainly have a destructive impact on the environment. The editor of Windpower Monthly wrote: "Too often the public has been duped into envisioning fairytale 'parks' in the countryside. The reality has been an abrupt awakening. Wind power stations are no parks." They are industrial installations and they are out of place in wilderness areas. So much for the Maltese public using them as picnic sites!
On March 2, the British Energy Minister announced that he will be rejecting the application to build a very large wind-farm on the Whinash ridge in the Lake District: a welcome recognition that on-shore wind energy can have severe environmental impacts.
Sir Martin Holdgate, a former scientific adviser to the UK government, put it succinctly: "They (wind-turbines) have a huge spatial foot-print for a piddling bit of electricity!"
As to their being removed after their 'useful' life-span is over, leaving virtually no trace on the land, I am sorry to disillusion Mr Debono. The British left in 1979 and there are still pylons standing uselessly and ruining the countryside around Ta' Kandja. The Altamont Pass in California is littered with derelict wind towers abandoned by company owners who simply disappeared after the tax advantages slowed down. It does not seem likely that, on their exiting, wind energy companies will spend their money to remove something no longer lucrative!
The costs of electricity for the consumer in Denmark are the highest in Europe. A major cause of this is the fact that the government subsidises the private wind-energy companies, which subsidies are added to the Danish electricity bills!
The Danish government has aborted its plans to build three offshore wind farms in 2008. It has also started phasing out subsidies from existing ones.
Spain began withdrawing subsidies in 2002. Germany (2004) reduced the tax breaks to wind power, and Switzerland (2005) also cut subsidies. The Dutch government decommissioned 90 turbines in 2004. In early 2004, the Irish government stopped all new connections to the national grid.
A study published by the German Energy Agency in February 2005 stated that an increase in the amount of wind-power would mean in real terms that costs for the consumers would increase by 3.7 times as much. As the UK conservation group Country Guardian puts it, wind-farms constitute an increase in energy supply, not a replacement; they do not reduce the costs - environmental, economic, and political - of other means of energy production; and since wind towers do not reduce conventional power use, then their manufacture, transport, and construction only increases the use of dirty energy. The Danish example amply demonstrates this undeniable reality.
Dr John Constable, director of Policy and Research for the UK Renewable Energy Foundation said: "Canny investors will realise that the on-shore wind bonanza is over and that the future belongs to technologies, such as tidal and biomass, with high intrinsic merit."
The spinning blades of a wind tower kill birds. The Danish Wind Industry Association admits this fact, but adds, as your correspondent does, that so do cars and power cables. The argument is similar to the aesthetic one: if the landscape is already spoilt in many ways, come on, MEPA, don't be mean, let us spoil it a little more! This 'little more' is more than little.
A 2002 study in Spain estimated that over 11,000 birds of prey (many of them already endangered), and hundreds of thousands of small birds are killed each year by wind turbines and their power lines. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that in Europe wind energy kills about 40 birds per turbine every year. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has objected to many wind-farms. Especially vulnerable are large birds of prey that like to fly in the same kind of places where wind turbines are likely to be standing. It is to be noted that birds of prey are protected in Malta, and the illegal shooting of such birds carries heavy penalties.
Your correspondent insists that because the new generation of wind turbines have smoother bearings and other innovations, noise is a thing of the past. This is absolutely not so. The fact remains that even the newest generators cannot avoid producing a low-frequency hum. That apart, the problem of noise produced by 35-metre blades slashing the air at over 160 kph is also insurmountable.
Besides, every time each rotor blade swishes by the tower, air is compressed and produces a deep resonating thump. After a five-year investigation into wind energy, the European Union found noise complaints to be valid. The US National Wind Co-ordinating Committee states: "Wind turbines generate noise that can be disturbing to nearby residents."
Lawsuits have been filed by individuals in various countries in this regard. Doctors have also started referring to the illness caused by wind-turbines as "Wind Turbine Noise Syndrome." The Malta report refers to other negative environment impacts. These include "light flicker, and vibration" dismissed by Mr Debono as pure nonsense. The wind-power industry recognises that the flicker of reflected light on one side and shadow on the other drives people and animals crazy. Besides, the wind towers must be lit at night. The American Wind Energy Association describes this as a serious nuisance, destroying the dark skies that many people in rural areas cherish.
Far from displaying "a degree of arrogant incompetence and lack of awareness of how things really are", the MTA is absolutely right in opposing wind farms. The MORI poll cited by Mr Debono was one of two carried out for the Scottish Executive and for the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), both of whom are promoting wind energy.
Both polls have, however, been badly discredited. The one truly independent poll was carried out for VisitScotland, the Scottish National Tourist Board. According to this poll, 94 per cent of visitors said that the chance to experience unspoilt nature was important in their decision to visit Scotland, 80 per cent said the beautiful scenery was essential, 28 per cent said they would avoid an area with a wind-farm on it, and no one was more likely to visit an area because of a wind-farm.
VisitScotland concluded that from a tourism perspective the siting of a wind farm was crucial. Even the BWEA itself, on one of its Websites (www.yes2wind.com), acknowledges that "nevertheless sites within areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks are unlikely to be appropriate for large wind farms."
And, apart from Ta' Cenc Cliffs on Gozo, what is there left of natural beauty on the Maltese Islands if not the ridges and cliffs from Mgarr to Dingli, where Mr Debono amazingly would like a wind farm to be sited?
The MTA is, therefore, correct in its assessment of the damaging effects of a wind farm on Maltese tourism. The MTA is also consistent in opposing something that clashes with its efforts to promote Malta as a destination for agro tourism and countryside walks.
Given these facts (which wind energy promoters seem unable to accept) and given the research on wind by scientists independent of the industry, the Maltese government is right to pre-empt public opposition to a land-based wind-farm on these islands.
Mr Debono requires an explanation from the government concerning its assertion on public opposition. The Marfa project is opposed by people of Mellieha whose property and quality of life will be adversely affected if the Maltese government were to approve it. So what does one call that if not public opposition?
To conclude, it would be madness to squander the nation's natural heritage and the taxpayers' money on "something as unpredictable as the wind" (Mr Debono's own words)! Particularly so because paradoxically, and I would add unfortunately, this so-called 'green' and 'clean' and 'free' energy source, while doing nothing to reduce fuel imports, and doing almost nothing to reduce the pollution (which it is supposed to eliminate), merely adds to the cost of our electricity bills (which it is supposed to decrease).
Whether the wind-energy supplier gets a subsidy or not is immaterial. One thing is certain: wind electricity is expensive, and its cost, either directly or disguised, will be invariably passed on to the consumers.
According to the German study referred to earlier, the theoretical reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved much more economically by simply installing filters on existing fossil-fuel plants.
Another option is for the Maltese government to offer incentives, such as tax rebates on some types of hybrid fuel-electric cars, on low-energy lighting, on double-glazed doors and windows, on solar heating, on bio-diesel, and other energy saving devices. Making public transport more user-friendly to encourage people to use it instead of their cars would also go some way to reducing pollution.
The EU may set targets such as that of five per cent of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2010. However, if, as the report concludes, this cannot be achieved in Malta without the construction of a large onshore wind-farm, a project which the Maltese government with much justification considers very negatively, then the agreement with the EU commission needs to be revised and preferably new targets set. It is no longer a question of Malta being still at square one.