Sowing the right wind with turbines

The editorial The Answer Is Not Just Blowing In The Wind (July 23) is timely and balanced. Yet, there are some aspects that are a little astray.

Apart from the problems mentioned in the editorial, the fabled deep offshore wind farm has other negative points. The first is that it represents a fundamentally-flawed approach to our energy problems in that it seeks a single grand solution when what we can provide are a series of comparatively small solutions with a significant total impact.

This grand solution has another serious flaw: our present grid is too small to handle the large variations in output that such a farm will produce. Some sort of buffer, say, a cable connection with Sicily would be required, and even that may deal with only half the problem.

But two of the strictures raised in the editorial - that the technology may never exist and that the true cost is unknown and will almost certainly be very expensive - are not correct. The more so if - as is likely - official wish lists move closer to practicality with regard to depth of water and size of farm. Then, should the authorities "get real" and, like our distant ancestors, crawl onto dry land, as the editorial points out, we have an immediately available, competitive and fully developed technology at our disposal.

Unfortunately, the editorial starts sliding back down from this logical high ground rather quickly. Useful turbines need not be "90 to 100 metres tall". Wind farms in Sicily have turbines with a hub height of 50 metres and a rotor diameter of 35-40 metres.

Light interception or flicker can be a problem anywhere; noise much less so, particularly in a country of loud conversation, loud music, petards and special, noise-making car exhausts. In any case, a noise footprint - and the larger the turbine the less noise it makes - is a well determined parameter which must be catered for at the planning stage.

As for "infra-sound nuisance", I stand to be instructed, being under the impression that that was a cow farm not a wind farm hazard. Damage to the countryside during construction can be minimal and most of it restorable; additions to electricity pylons there need not be; buildings for electricity transmission are likely to be already there.

Incidentally, on damage to landscape, might I suggest a visit by Mepa enforcement officers to the now-derelict transmission mast farm at Baħrija for a look at the extensive garigue destruction under the thoroughly fraudulent pretext of creating new arable land by dumping large amounts of construction waste covered by a thin layer of soil?

As to reduction of property values, this has become the parrot cry of every nimby clan, most of whom would not have the slightest regret at burying a next-door neighbour under their third storey and penthouse, seriously affecting quality of life as well as the availability of sunlight for natural illumination, and the generation of hot water and electricity. The same people will also complain endlessly about pollution from the power stations and the astronomical cost of electricity.