Recent comment on windfarm subsidies has exposed the disastrous way in which the Westminster government has been supporting renewable energy development.
Millions of pounds of subsidy is pouring into the coffers of multinational energy companies while grave doubts remain about how much renewable energy is actually being produced and how best it can be fed into the national grid. No account is being taken of the damage being done to the finest wild landscapes of western Europe, the consequences for the Scottish tourist industry or the visual impact of enormous wind turbines on local communities and outdoor recreation interests.
All this is far worse than the madhouse economics that plastered much of upland Scotland in worthless forestry plantations not so many years ago. Do politicians never learn?
This issue should be put before anyone hoping to be elected to Westminster at the next General Election. The existing financial support regime for wind power needs to be scrapped and replaced with a new scheme which encourages all future large-scale wind power developments to be located offshore with associated subsea grid connections to England and other countries.
The future for onshore wind generation on most of the Scottish mainland should be in small-scale turbines, integrated into the local landscape. This will help to meet the primary aim of reducing demand on the grid while also restraining the growth of our electricity bills. It is people, local communities and landscape that should be the main beneficiaries of wind-power generation, not the directors and shareholders of energy companies.
Alison Mitchell, Convener, Ramblers' Association Scotland, Kingfisher House, Milnathort.
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