Marc Duchamp (Wind Farms Kill Birds, November 3) continues to raise the old chestnut that wind turbines kill birds. Perusal of his website confirms that he is an outdated wind energy opponent who is still basing his argument on recycled ideas from the early days of wind energy.
A lot has been learned since then and matters have improved greatly. The wind industry now cooperates with environmental groups, state regulators and other interested parties to develop strategies aimed at minimising wind energy's effect on birds.
Migration paths and areas harbouring threatened or endangered bird species are now routinely avoided and the wind industry continues to seek ways of mitigating wind energy's effect on birds.
Turbines do kill the occasional bird, but not to the extent claimed by Mr Duchamp. But then, birds live dangerously anyway. Sixty to 80 million birds are killed every year by motor vehicles in the US, over 100 million die from hitting glass windows of high buildings, up to 220 million die from collisions with powerlines and communication towers.
To these must be added birds killed by oil pollution and oil spills. A single oil shipping accident can cause more than half a million birds to perish.
Coal fired electricity plants cause massive bird deaths. Millions of birds are killed by insecticides, hunters and (feral and domestic) cats - house cats alone are believed to kill huge numbers of birds.
Even if wind energy were to be adopted worldwide to its maximum, bird deaths from wind energy would still not reach one per cent of those from other man-made causes. The threat to birds (and other animals) from climate change is even greater than that posed by all the forgoing. The benefits to all wildlife from increasing use of alternative renewable sources of energy (and therefore less fossil fuel) will probably compensate the minor threat to birds posed by wind turbines. One could therefore argue that not using renewable energy (including wind turbines) will ultimately constitute a greater threat to bird life - not to mention human life. Mr Duchamp would probably save more birds by campaigning against fast motor vehicles, high-rise buildings with plate glass windows etc.
Apart from environmental considerations, it now makes economical sense to invest in wind energy. A correspondent from the UK (Wind Energy Essential, November 13) put it in a nutshell: "Malta needs wind powered energy. If Malta wants to thrive in the decades ahead, there is simply no other way".
On November 3, in a letter aptly titled Oil Is Costly, Talk Is Cheap, a correspondent from Canada firmly told Alfred Sant that it is impossible to reduce the surcharge on electricity prices. Quite so; Malta has the highest oil dependency - of 100 per cent - in the EU (as reported also on November 3) so we have to pay accordingly.
In the meantime, Malta continues to procrastinate on renewable energy by opting for the most expensive technology of deep sea wind energy turbines - a technology which does not exist yet. Malta will thus remain 100 per cent dependent on fossil fuel for the foreseeable future. The electricity surcharge is here to stay.