Windfarms are cool.

This article seems to have a problem with maths though.

According to data from the National Grid, production of electricity from wind reached a historical record on the 6th of September this year, with around 10% of all electricity delivered to consumers generated by the UK’s wind farms.

At the peak time of 8.30pm on Monday 6th September, 1860MW was being generated – largely from Scotland – accounting for 4.7 per cent of total generation at the time.

The figures given show 4.7% of generation, not 10%. It may have risen before or after peak time, but is not peak time the normal point of measurement? Perhaps a link to sources so we can verify this would be useful, otherwise this just looks incompetnent.

Wind energy is a good thing in the right place (personally I don’t like silhouttes of giant windmills on hills – but then I care about the environment), However, I do not see it as being particularly easy to continually increase the production, as it requires large amount of space, and there is only so many places we can build windfarms. This does not seem to be addressed in the quotes and links above.

“Now delivering”??

You mean briefly delivered.

On a windy day.

Martin – do you live near one?

cjcjc

do you live near a coal fired power station?

Well, if we’re comparing domiciles I used to live near a nuclear power station. Bit of a blight on the landscape, but nowhere near as bad as a windfarm or coal powered station (required neither access roads and concrete on hill tops, nor clouds of soot and huge mounds of coal with a constant supply of trucks/trains).

And both me and my other head are doing fine

What would be just as interesting, and far more important, is to know what the lowest contribution was

sl,

I assume you mean recently, since we know the lowest contribution was 0% a good few years ago!

As I live in central London I am fortunate enough to live near neither.

But they are somewhat (to say the least) more efficient than windfarms and have a somewhat (to say the least) smaller footprint per kWh.

@Watchman,

Just to clarify the maths in the article, the 10% refers to the entire supply over the course of the day, while the 4.7% refers to the share at the time of highest generation. Supply varies by about ~20GW over 24 hours corresponding to increases in demand, so a share of 4.7% at 8:30pm when everyone has the telly on may cash out as a share of 20% when everyone’s gone to sleep.

“Wind now delivering about 10% of UK power” oh yeah Parliament’s back from recess isn’t it.

You mean briefly delivered. On a windy day.

In the summer.

10% ?
not in a million years.

I think the article is pretty clear about the maths. Indeed it seems to under-estimate peak energy from wind.

4.7% of peak use energy was from wind turbines

10% of the day’s total energy use was from wind

The fact that the 10% figure is stated as including low voltage local supply – it seems likely that the 4.7% does not – and that makes sense as peak supply figures tend to be figures for high voltage transmission.

So in reality – wind probably provided more than 4.7% of peak supply as it makes up a bigger percent of low voltage local supply than things like burning coal or nuclear energy.

Not that 4.7% is enough. We need to invest in a lot more turbines to push that figure up.

If we want the lights to stay on in five years time, we have to import more power and/or build more power plants and/or extend the lives of plants we already have. I’m not convinced that building more wind turbines will be sufficient.

not sufficient – but in effect neccessary

It is one of the only domestic energy supplies we can expand at relatively low cost. Tidal power and hydro-electric power are expensive or limited in scope – and aside from coal we are facing a dwindling domestic supply of fossil fuels.

At 2008, according to the Government, “energy companies will need to build around 30-35 GW of new electricity generating capacity over the next two decades. They will have to make around two-thirds of this investment by 2020. So investment decisions made in the next few years will affect our electricity generation infrastructure for decades to come.”

I think we need to get a move on!

UKLiberty

Nah – we have a new government again so the figures will change and lifetimes of current facilities will just be extended again.

Margin4error, for how long can we extend the lifetimes of our current facilities?

Bearing in mind not just(!) physical constraints but EU obligations in relation to pollution targets.

ukliberty

Thing is – we can do it for quite a bit longer so long as we are willing to accept rising prices, high polution and the risk of serious breakdowns and even accidents.

We can invest relatively little to effectively paper over the cracks in our energy infrastructure still – and that will keep the lights on. But if the UK is to stay competitive and safe and cut pollution – then we need big investment in lots of new energy infrastructure – and wind turbines are a big part of that.

This 10% claim is yet another orchestrated propaganda exercise that has minimal meaning in any real world. So a collective of wind farms managed to generate 10% (it is claimed) of the UK electricity output. For how long was this sustained? How much gas plant was “sitting behind” this wind output in standby mode? Who is paying the wages of that gas generating plant staff? Who is paying the business rates of those plants even though they are not making any profit? The simple answer is that “we” the consumers are paying for all of this scandalous white elephant that is wind energy as the most expensive form of generation we have ever known.
If you think I am making this up (or am mad) grab a copy of “The Wind Farm Scam” by the ecologist Dr John Etherington and see how you are all being taken for a ride.
As someone who has worked in power stations for 36 years I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that the vast majority of the UK (and world) population have no idea of the scale of the numbers involved with electricity generation and even less understanding of what comprises a fully integrated high voltage AC supply network.
If they did, they would know that wind energy can NEVER form a large percentage of such a system because it would be nigh on impossible to control the system frequency within limits with wind coming and going (mostly going) without warning.
The 1860MW claimed for the wind farm last week is less than the output of Ratcliffe coal fired station in Nottingham.
When it is claimed that the new £750 million wind farm off the Kent coast will produce “enough energy to supply heat and light 200,000 homes”, it then goes on to say that it will generate 300Megawatts. (300,000 kilowatts). Try dividing 300,000 by 200,000 and you will get 1.5 kilowatts per household. Now try heating and lighting your house with that!! A kettle uses twice as much at 3kw!! Actually the 1.5kw is quite generous, as usually electricity companies and government departments only allow 600 watts per household in their claims. This is only at FULL output however, and when wind speeds drop to 20mph the output is only 40%, but most astonishing when the wind is 10mph (most often!) the output is only ONE percent. That is each of these 200,000 homes gets 15 watts each…………or one low energy light bulb to heat and light the house with. Now do you think you are being lied to?
As for coal fired stations polluting with clouds of soot. This is yet more Green proganda.
Firstly coal fired stations do emit carbon dioxide, it is a by-product of burning coal, but despite what Obama and Gore tell you, CO2 is NOT a pollutant, but a gas necessary to sustain healthy plant growth. There is not one stitch of evidence to link CO2 with any changes in global temperatures (in fact the opposite).
Look at the NIPCC website http://www.nipccreport.org/
Almost all the sulphur emissions are dealt with before gases leave the chimney and the majority of what you see coming from a coal power station is harmless steam, (coal has moisture) as is ALL of the clouds that come from any cooling towers. Particulate emissions are extremely small and set to limits closely monitored by the Environment Agency under the threat of individual prosecution..
The vast majority of coal to power stations arrives by rail and not in lorries.
So, the truth is no pollution. Let’s ignore the EU, repeal the Alice in Wonderland Climate Act and keep our coal generation going, we have always maintained and retro-fitted such plants. The sooner Huhne, Clegg, Cameron and Miliband wake up to reality, the better.

commonsense

To be fair – the UK woke up to climate change a bit before America – so Gore isn’t really the basis for us investing in wind energy.

And while no one says it will make up 100% of our energy needs – that it made up 10% of our needs on a given day hardly seems cause for slagging it off. That seems like evidence it can be of real value in the energy mix.

It is a domestic source of energy not dependent on despots be they in Russia or Arabia. It is clean and doesn’t pump out co2. (Plants can only soak up so much carbon, and already do so from the huge ammounts already in the atmosphere.) and it is a valuable addition to the energy mix (and a diverse supply is a secure supply)

Also

be wary of reading the views of SEPP and their NIPCC efforts. The founder set them up to underming the case for government restrictions on polution in the States and is funded by private contributions from people and companies with a range of vested interests in continuing to pollute.

Notably it also lies.

It has argued that while computer models show climate change happening, satelite recordings don’t.

This is a lie. Satelite monitoring shows climate change happening. it is happening at a rate (this century) of between one and a half and two degrees per century (the computer models suggest it will accelerate, which satelite monitoring can’t do)

And they lie because they don’t need to convince the inteligent or thoughtful. They just need to provide the ignorant with arguments that make them skeptical and angry – which in turn makes it harder for governments to act – which in turn means the people paying for SEPP can keep polluting.

@Commonsense

Your claim to be an electrical engineer would be slightly more plausible if you hadn’t used the wrong method to calculate average household usage – your 1.5kw figure refers to average demand at a given time, including in the middle of the night when no kettles are being boiled. The correct approach is to calculate the average amount of MWh that will be available to a household over a year, rather than at a random time. That’s given by 300x24x365= 2628000MWh. Divide that figure by 200,000, and you’ll get the figure supplied to each household per year: 13.14MWh. Assuming it takes a 3kw kettle 5 minutes to boil, that means you could boil your kettle 52,560 times over the course of year. I like tea, but I’m willing to venture no-one boils their kettle that much.

Mind you, the actual average electricity demand for a three-bedroom house is in the region of 4.2MWh, so it’s clear that the developers have under-estimated the number of households they can supply in a year – or, they’ve been using the very conservative capacity factor of 31% of nameplate generation over the course of a year.

Someone here isn’t telling the truth. I wonder who it is.

@Adam Bell,

Adam, this is exactly one of the points I was trying to make when I said that most people do not understand how an integrated supply system holds up.
Average household consumption figures are completely meaningless in this context and live only in the heads of accountants. All generating plant is joined together on the grid system and ALLoperate at 50hz frequency when the supply and demand is matched exactly. When I started in the CEGB and spent training periods at Grid Control Centres, the loading and ispatching engineers would have historical data in the form of paper charts going back several years for that hour of that day. They would then make an adjustment for any changes in the weather (real or forecast) and then have an awareness of any pending mass audience TV programmes (like the FA Cup Final) and call upon individual generating units to either come on load, pck up load or indeed shutdown in order to control the changes in frequency. They also used some voltage reductions methods. Now it is all done by computers, but the basic is unchanged.
You have to have (ON the system) enough capacity at any second of the day to meet a sudden change of frequency or a sudden loss of line or generator due to breakdown. I am not opposed to Wind Generation in principle but clearly none of it can be relied on to fulfill the role I have just explained. I think you are slightly underestimated the sorts of loads that domestic homes can demand. I recenty worked out that a real-life scenario (even allowing for capacity factors) could be as high at 20kw.
Consider a shower (9-12kw), somebody cooking a meal at the same time, the kettle on, lights on, it soon adds up.
It is rubbish to say to those homeowners, “sorry you can only have our prescribed average”…….they will keep plugging stuff in, and the frequency will start to slow, voltage drops, areas will be blacked out.
If our grid system was only capable of providing the average to each household at any one time, everytime there was a surge in demand we would have no electricity. That is how it works, and (sadly) you and others can accuse me of slaghging off Wind, but it can never work.
Yes it can ADD to our generating portfolio, but must always have back-up generation like hot-standby gas plant which we are all paying a high price for.
Please read the book I suggested. Even Denmark have given up on it.

Margin4error.
Maybe Gore is not the basis for us investing in Wind Energy, but he has to take responsibility for brainwashing the majority of children in our schools with misleading and alarmist material. Ask the High Court judge who said so.
I am not slagging off wind energy in principle, I am all in favour of getting something for nothing, but this is the exact opposite of that and is the most expensive form of generation around. What I am saying is that it can never form the backbone of our generating system, and if you think that it can, then I fear you are deluding yourself and others.
Who cares how much CO2 we “pump out”. I stress that it is not a pollutant..
This is another scare story, because the climate is changing and has changed for ever, with or without the current levels of CO2. Science can never have a concensus. Science is about questioning, testing and proving beyond reasonable doubt.The CO2 theories do not hold up to the testing.
By talking about the “the inteligent or thoughtful”, I presume you include yourself in that category. Try reading Climate:The Counter Concensus by Prof Carter, who I have found to be intelligent and thoughtful.
I have read the counter views and personally I would prefer to believe them because there is so much evidence to back up those views.The amount of supporting papers and real science is astonishing.
Why would you disregard any of it?
The only thing missing is the opportunity to express them without being verbally abused.
Incidentally computer models do not predict anything. They can only project.
Even the politically and environmental group driven IPCC agrees on that.

It’s certainly true that wind can’t provide firm capacity in the way which you suggest – but neither can anything else, otherwise we wouldn’t need 14GW of backup on the system in case of tripping thermal plant. It’s also true that wind requires shadow generation, but I would dispute that it’s necessarily the case that’ll all be provided by OCGT – National Grid have great confidence in the potential for four-hour generation forecasting by 2020, which would allow the use of more efficient CCGT plant to perform at least part of the shadowing role.

The alternative to having wind on the system, of course, is to use gas exclusively for peak demand, which incurs significant fuel costs. You know we already have about 40% of our capacity from gas in any case, and with the addition of more baseload generation, most likely from nuclear, a wind/gas mix for peak demand would represent a clear fuel saving over gas alone. Look up OfGem’s Project Discovery scenarios, which show that adding significant amounts of wind raises bills by 20% – but leaving it to gas raises bills by 70%.

In terms of Etherington’s book, I would urge you to read this critique of it, which was recently published in ‘Wind Engineering’: http://www.embracemyplanet.com/critique-wind-farm-scam

@Adam Bell
You are right to observe that “backup” is always required on the system, but may I just explain that historically this has been only sufficient generation to meet the largest single potential loss, such as a double circuit overhead line or large generator (500MW). Most of this has been achieved not by spinning reserve (although that is possible) but by “pegging back” rapid response plant, be it mid-merit coal or CCGT.
The difference with wind (as a National Grid engineer reliably informed me) is that at all times most of it has to be shadowed, to use your phrase. It is a ridiculous cost and the public are largely unaware.
You are wrong to say that Gas is the exclusive alternative to wind for peak demand. We could just as easily continue to use our coal plants. In the days of the CEGB (oh how I wish we could turn the clock back) all plant was scheduled in pure thermal efficiency order, therefore always ensuring the best deal for the customer. After the madness of privatisation, companies fiddled everything to force their own generation on at the expense of competitors to maximise profits for the shareholders. Who gave a toss about keeping the lights on?
A great use for wind energy was inadvertently highlighted on the BBCTV programme “Coast” yesterday whereby a guy on Shetland drives a hydrogen fuelled car, and said that the hydrogen was provided via wind energy. We should forget wind to provide electricity on a mass scale (it won’t work) and use the combined outputs to make low cost hydrogen and diminish our dependence on petroleum!
Thanks for pointing me to the critique of Prof John Etherington’s book. I have read a good deal of it, but why am I surprised that in true Alarmist style it begins with character “assassinations” of Christopher Booker (who I admire) and the books’ author?
This is unprofessional and unnecessary…..the critique author is of course a leading light in renewable energy and sustainability and is Director of the AMSET Centre Ltd. Slightly biased one would think?
Some of the content does have value, but I would like to challenge some of his petty and pedantic nit-picking, but there would be no point. My advice is to ignore ALL critique, read the book yourself and make up your own mind. What I like about such literature and authors like Booker, Gerondeau, and especially Robert Carter is that they readily supply references that are open to read, challenge or whatever. For the most part they seem to be more right than wrong. Unfortunately the IPCC and it’s gang of hangers-on are reluctant to release any data, enter into any open debate and blatantly suppress any views that do not align with their somewhat sinister agenda. This however will soon change.

@margin4error

We don’t need satellite monitoring to tell us that climate is changing. It has always changed, and will continue to do so. Please do not get excited by computer modelling, they are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard, and are rapidly being shown to be so.
In any case, what if we are to witness a 2 degree or more temperature rise?
What do you think will happen? In Norway the average annual temperature is probably about 6 degrees C, and in Singapore it is 36 degrees C. Amazingly the populations of both countries exist, bring up kids, work and survive.
I would suggest that the rest of us would be able to manage a modest rise over such a long period.
The only flaw in all of this is that “global temperatures” (whatever that means?) have shown a steady and consistent cooling since 1998.
Maybe we should dig out our thermals

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/

Yeah. Check out those decreasing temperatures since 1998.

Oh, wait. Erm. Hmm. Must be a conspiracy of some sort. Yeah.

Wind’s fine, and can indeed make “some” contribution. Quite how much depends on how much seabed and countryside you want to give up to it, of course. Personally, I’m more of a fan of solar and nuclear over wind and tide (second-hand wind), but there we go.

Yep, we need backup capacity, or some kind of storage mechanism, for when the wind doesn’t blow – but that’s not particularly insurmountable.

http://www.withouthotair.com/ , anyone?

commonsence

Wind can’t produce our base load. But it can produce energy. Low-pollution domestic energy. That’s a good thing. It is more expensive than burning oil. But we don’t have much oil. We have lots of wind. Also the price is less volatile. In 20 years oil power is likely to be more expensive than wind. The cost of extracting oil is rising and the parts of the world with lasting reserves tend to be volatile and even despotic places.

So your price argument is short sighted.

More than that though – you seem thus to have acknowledged that your own sources lie. You agree climate change is happening. Yet as I said, your source of information says that satelite monitoring shows no such thing. (An out and out lie that they simply hope ignorant people will blindly accept and repeat)

So now you are saying that climate change is happening – but is natural. Now you clearly have no evidence of that to match the reems of widely accepted and scientifically scrutinised evidence that rapid climate change is a man-made phenomenon.

@commonsense

The biggest single loss on the grid is Sizewell B, at 1.2GW. National Grid’s 2009 consultation paper on generating in 2020 (http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/32879A26-D6F2-4D82-9441-40FB2B0E2E0C/39517/Operatingin2020Consulation1.pdf) indicates a need for increased backup to accommodate large new nuclear plants and anticipates a wind forecasting window of four hours, which would allow a significant reduction in the amount of wind that needs to be shadowed at any given time. Your engineer friend is incorrect.

I’m a bit confused by your reference to the use of coal for shadowing – which coal plants in the UK are more efficient than any of our CCGT plant? The main reason I refer to an energy mix that likely excludes coal is that coal will be very difficult to run in line with EU regulation (whatever your opinion of the EU, we have to consider the likely regulatory environment for the next ten years in this discussion), without CCS, about which I share the same doubts as yourself.

I think it’s absolutely fair to dismiss Christopher Booker as a source of information – just to take an example, his latest Telegraph article (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8025148/The-Thanet-wind-farm-will-milk-us-of-billions.html) is riddled with factual inaccuracies. The most blatant one is his claim that each MWh of wind energy is subsidised by £100, when the real value is half that number – look at OfGem’s records here: http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/RenewablObl/Documents1/Annual%20Report%202008-09.pdf. Simply putting references in his work doesn’t make it valid – I would urge you to check the provenance of many of those references. I would urge you to do the same with Etherington’s work. You’ll find many examples of cherry-picking quotes from papers that are far more equivocal, and references to non-peer reviewed literature. I would then urge you to compare the relative validity of Booker’s references with those in the IPCC’s report.

Woops, actually I’m wrong on the £100 thing; I forgot offshore is still getting two ROCs. Doesn’t change the fact that his figures on power generation are incorrect, though.

OK chaps (I assume)…. Those of you that have responded to my contributions to this debate have eloquently demonstrated that you are the new “deniers” and I am afraid that the fullness of time will show that whilst you are clearly passionate, you are sadly deluded. This will be my last contribution to this blog, which I hope you and others might find of interest, but in all honesty believe otherwise.
@Adam Bell… I have given an insight into my background of a lifetime actually making electricity but I have no idea of your credentials or experience in such matters. You are very supportive of information you glean from National Grid but tell me that “my engineer friend” is incorrect. In truth I never said this was a friend, but will tell you that I wrote to National Grid for some professionally technical information about generation and voltage control and especially wind power’s ability to provide reactive power generation (Mvars) which I very much doubt 99% of readers will understand. A Senior Engineer from National Grid telephoned me at home and we spoke for over 40mins on this subject. What I have told you is what he told me. Either he is lying or you have got it very wrong. Personally, I would side with him. Having said that, when one reads National Grids website Climate Change policy, it is pure government led (of course) so a degree of caution might be worthwhile. I talked of a single system loss and you responded by saying that the biggest loss would be Sizewell. I would argue that it would be very unlikely that a complete power station would be “lost” as described, more likely one unit, but if what you say is true that it just means that even more reserve must be available ( at MORE cost). Please take the trouble to read ALL of the report in this link, that has been submitted by another person who has had real life experience of this and is not just another university based consultant who is getting his mortgage paid by the UK taxpayer in the name of saving a planet that is not at risk.
http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/481710B7-022B-470C-A7FC-D25CF947028F/38395/DerekGBirkett.pdfI
I would not “dismiss” Christopher Booker. I have read a lot of his stuff and genuinely think that he makes a lot of sense and is more in touch with ordinary people than many politicians, consultants and so-called experts. I will live with that. You “urge me to compare the relative validity of Booker’s references with those in the IPCC’s report”. This is the point where you lost credibility with me because I fail to see how anyone can take anything the IPCC say with any seriousness. They display an arrogance towards true science, overtly conceal data, talk of peer-reviews when reports are basically only “so called reviewed” in-house. They have been found guilty of using distorted data, supporting scandalous scare-stories and propagating fear. Not even Christopher Booker could own up to all of this.
@Nick… how unfortunate that you should point me to the James Hansen derived NASA temperature graph with a suggestion of some conspiracy. Evidence of warmth-inducing corrections to local temperature records have emerged in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA and there have now been calls for a congressional investigation into NASA and other organisations. Maybe you will find the real conspiracy there?
http://www.iceagenow.com/Global_temperatures_are_falling.htm
http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/25791/Falling_Temperatures_Confound_Alarmists.html
As to your suggestion of some sort of storage for electricity (apart from pumped storage), this suggests that you have little idea of how the national system works, the key factor of frequency or the sheer scale of the numbers involved. They don’t build batteries that big, and if they could they would be DC.

@margin4error…… I am not sure how you interpret any of the points I have made and conclude that such sources lie. Ask yourself why such eminent people would want to lie and what they might gain by it. Then ask yourself what the combined so-called scientists, environmental activists, politicians, wind energy companies etc stand to gain by distorting data? (i.e. lying). I balk at your suggestion that I might be ignorant and would blindly accept and repeat anything I am told. That is pure hypocrisy. I am far from ignorant, am passionate about conservation and love this plant as much as most people and want my grand children (yes…..grandchildren) to have a healthy life.
You are SO wrong to say that there is no evidence to match the reams of scientifically scrutinised evidence….etc. There are now thousands of REAL scientists (not hangers on in the IPCC) who have written proper peer-reviewed papers. They struggle to get them published for sinister reasons. Do yourself a favour and get a copy of “Climate The Counter Concensus” and you will find loads of references.
I’ll leave you all with a real gem. This is especially relevant to any of you who are under 40 years of age and will not have previously seen this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttLBqB0qDko&feature=player_embedded#
Just take a look and take special note of the style, content and the message behind this and finally check out the “scientific concensus”
cheers

@Commonsense:
Your unwillingness to argue in good faith is indicative of your position. You claim that anything mandated by the Government must automatically be wrong, and then link to an article by a man opposed to the Beaully-Denny line using wind’s variability as a basis for objection. Retired NIMBYs are what’s wrong with this country now – and your claim that Booker wouldn’t use ‘distorted data, supporting scandalous scare-stories and propagating fear’ is simply laughable: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7946155/Forced-adoption-social-workers-surreal-investigation-recalls-satanic-abuse-scandals.html

‘Many loving families have been torn apart by forced adoptions’. A single case does not a trend make, unless one is seeking to propagate fear. Booker is simply a journalist who knows on what side his bread is buttered.

@Adam Bell
I did say that I was not going to contribute to this discussion forum anymore and this time I do mean that. As a “retired NIMBY” (?) I am all too willing to debate topics with any number of people, but do expect them to at least reply to points raised. You are very quick to provide so-called facts or opinions, but once challenged, you have shown a consistent reluctance to either answer the point raised or return to the subject. What you do is dig up some other (unrelated) reference, and so this is becoming a game of bat and ball that is going nowhere. THAT is indicative of my position, not my unwillingness to argue. “Retired NIMBYS” are far from what is wrong with this country today.
Most of them are the honest, tax-paying people that built the infrastructure that you all take for granted and have earned respect. I do not necessarily agree with many of your views, but I value your opinion and respect your right to that view. You however, do not seem to offer reciprocal respect.
What IS wrong with this country are young career politicians who have never done a decent day’s work in their lives, have absolutely no idea of the real world and are hell-bent on any crusade that makes them look better.
Why you should dig out an article by Christopher Booker from August is questionable, but fortuitously it has provided an indicator of how ill-informed you may be. Why not stop reading the headlines in the papers, the flashy websites and get stuck into some books? The subject here was sensitively covered in Booker’s book “Scared To Death” which you obviously haven’t read. The chapter on Ritualized Child Abuse centres around more crap scientific opinion from America that was honed in on by Social Workers. One young lad was taken (wrongly) from his parents and later committed suicide. I am not ashamed to admit that it made me cry. If you think this is “scandalous scare-stories and propagating fear”, then you are sick. This has happened to real people and from this article, it would seem that few lessons have been learnt. What on earth do you mean by the demeaning phrase “he is just a journalist”? What are you? What do you do?
Why do you and other correspondents think that such people lie and use false data or references? Can’t you see that if they did so they would be subject to libel or similar and be dragged through the courts. Oddly enough, they are not which must tell you something?
They only high profile person related to this topic to suffer in our High Court is your idol Al Gore who is quite indefensible.
I dare say you were wetting yourself when the news broke on the BBC this morning of the Royal Society’s report confirming that climate change is now definitely man-made, what a surprise form an IPCC puppet organisation!
My very last gesture is to leave you with some genuine extracts (well documented) from an excellent book (i.e they are not all my words)………please don’t bother replying, but have a nice life

In 2006 Robert Harrabin (the BBC environmental analyst) organised a PRIVATE meeting at BBC Television Centre titled “Climate Change – the Challenge to Broadcasting” that was held under the auspices of the BBC and two environmental lobby groups – The International Broadcasting Trust and the Cambridge Media and Environment Programme.
Former ROYAL SOCIETY President, Robert May, was the keynote speaker and delivered a briefing on global warming to an audience that included about 30 key BBC staff and executives and about 30 invited guests, most of whom were environmental activists.
The (untrue) message was that the science supporting global warming was so certain that it was the BBC’s public duty to cease providing airtime to alternative opinions.
One participant at the meeting recalled “I found the seminar frankly shocking. The BBC crew (senior executives from every branch of the Corporation) were matche by an equal number of specialists, almost all (and maybe all) of whom could be said to come from the “we must support Kyoto” school of climate activists, continuing, “I was frankly appalled by the level of ignorance of the issue which the BBC people showed”.
Not only did the BBC subsequently fall into line with the preposterous idea put by Lord May, but as the biased news coverage of global warming ever since has shown, the same attitude was soon propagated to national broadcasters in at least New Zealand, Australia and Canada via the invisible professional networks that link commonwealth broadcasters and Royal Societies alike.
The first mentions of “acidification of the ocean” are found in papers published in the 1990’s, but is was a 2005 ROYAL SOCIETY report from a committee chaired by Scottish biologist John Raven, that produced the notorious computer-model prediction that “the average pH of the oceans will fall y up to 0.5 units by 2100 if global emissions continue to rise at present rates”. The inadequacy of the modelling was pointed out by David Bellammy, (who incidentally is no longer seen on the BBC.,ever wonder why?) and showed that inflated unrealistic rates had been assumed etc.

In 2006 the ROYAL SOCIETY’s policy communication officer, Bob ward, wrote an intimidatory letter to Esso (UK) in an effort o suppress Esso’s funding for organisations that in the ROYAL SOCIETY’s view “misrepresented the science of climate change, by outright denial of the evidence that greenhouse gases are driving the climate change…..or by overstating the amount and significance of uncertainty in knowledge, or by conveying a misleading impression of the potential impacts of anthropogenic climate change”
Ward’s attempt to prevent free public discussion of global warming resulted in rapid condemnation.
Since about 2005 many professional groups and societies all over the world have rushed to add their particular society’s name to what the perceive to be a worthy and illustrious list. Astonishingly, in view of the hotly disputed nature of much of he science involved, more than 50 such professional organisations have now released statements proclaiming their alarm about global warming, and urging government to take action on it.
What none of these science organisations tell the public is that the alarmist statements they release are carefully contrived for political reasons by their management and governing bodies.
Prof R Carter warns….Beware the managers of scientific societies, like all others, for they like to manage, and beware even more the directors, for they like to direct; and neither of these are scientific activities.

Clearly I hit a nerve. Booker was arguing the admittedly terrible cases of social workers removing children are about to happen again on the back of a single case. This is a fear-mongering, however you wish to portray it.

Journalists are not liable for libel actions if they make up science; it’s only if they attack individuals that they do that. They barely even pay attention to the PCC – I received emails from the Daily Mail in response to complaints about their coverage which actually state that under the code anything presented as ‘opinion’ – i.e. an op-ed like those of Booker in the Telegraph – doesn’t have to be accurate, as it’s an opinion piece.

I didn’t know that you were retired, or that you were a NIMBY. I’m going to ask you the obvious question, in that case: has a wind development or a development relating to wind power been proposed for anywhere near where you live? Have you ever heard of the concept of cognitive bias?

What none of these science organisations tell the public is that the alarmist statements they release are carefully contrived for political reasons by their management and governing bodies.

ooh, let’s see your evidence for that.

“ooh, let’s see your evidence for that.”

He doesn’t need evidence, you blind fool! He has scary-sounding ALARMIST STATEMENTS! Contrived by the eeevil powers that be! Wake up, sheeple!

@Aam Bell
I feel like Frank Sinatra making yet another comeback, but I cannot let you get away with the points you are making about Christopher Booker.You may not like him, his views, his style or indeed any journalists , but you are displaying pure hypocrisy because you have obviously not read any of his material other than what you get in the papers. He is the last person to champion scare-mongerimg stories for gain. The whole point of his brilliant book “Scared To Death” is that it lists many examples whereby an obvious pattern has arisen with such scare-mongering stories. He is intent on STOPPING it , unlike the climate change lobby. It goes like this, some lack-lustre scientist or research worker comes up with an idea or a theory that they suggest could be injurious to health. Next, a journalist (what, not Mr Booker??!?) picks up the story and a headline goes round the world. Then the politicians join in and accept the inadequate “science” at face-value and faced with public concern because the papers say so, introduce legislation, or invent a Government Department to deal with it and so WE (the tax-paying public) end up with more laws, higher taxes, putting companies out of business, bankrupting others, etc etc. Examples include :”Killer Eggs”: The Great Salmonella Scare 1988-9,; Enter the Hygiene Police: Paying The Price 1990-4; ‘Listeria Hysteria’: The Lanark Blue Case 1995; Mad Cows and Madder Politicians: The BSE/CJD Scare 1996-9 (how many were going to die???) ; Officials Can Kill: Meat, Cheese and E coli 1998 ; The £1 Billion Blunder: The Belgian Dioxins Debacle 1999 ; The Millennium Bug. (what a joke !!!!!!!) ; Sledgehammers To Miss Nuts: (DDT, Nitrate, Vitamin B6, Cockles). ; The Modern Witch Craze: Ritualised Child Abuse ( NOT a one-off case at all but a sad and sinister series of events from which we seem to have learned little) ; ‘Speed Kills’: A Safety Scare That Cost Lives. ; ‘We Love Unleaded’: How Confusion Over Lead Cost Billions ; Smoke and Mirrors: How They Turned ‘Passive Smoking’ Into A Killer Chapter; ‘One Fibre Can Kill’: The Great Asbestos Scam. ( what you believe as “white” asbestos, isn’t asbestos at all (asbestos was banned after WW2) and is intrinsically safe in the form that it has traditionally been used, but companies have made billions by exploiting the fear) and last but by no means least ; our old friend, ‘Saving The Planet’: The New Secular Religion .
ALL of these “scares” follow the same trend.
Read the book and learn.
I will leave you and other contributors with a book list to open your eyes and ears. Believe what you will from them, but do not ignore them.
Christopher Booker: “Scared To Death”, and “The Real Global Warming Disaster” ( find out exactly how the sinister IPCC came into being and what it really stands for)
Prof J Etherington “The Wind Farm Scam”
Nigel Lawson: “An Appeal to Reason”
Gareth Morgan / John Crystal “Poles Apart” The Great Climate Change Debate
Christian Gerondeau “Climate ; The Great Delusion”
Prof Robert Carter “Climate: The Counter Consensus”
They can’t ALL be mad or bad

Bye
Ps I am not really a NIMBY, just winding you up