“yes! do sign petition 22958 if you are a moron, and you don't believe climate change is happening and you think that releasing all the CO2 into the atmosphere in one century, that has been sequestered by nature over tens of millions of years couldn't possibly affect the environment (which we actually live in) in any way which could be unpredictable or potentially hazardous to humanity!

Sign the petition, if you believe the CEOs of oil companies (who can dig up billions of barrels of oil for less than $20 a barrel but sell it for $80 a barrel) whose declared strategy is to instil doubt into public consciousness about AGW in much the same fashion as tobacco companies tried to suggest that there was some debate amongst medics that smoking was causing heart disease and lung cancer.”

“beg pardon .. that should have been 240 million TONS of oil equivalent, not barrels, silly me!”

“Are you disillusioned by rising electricity prices, over dependence on the "green" dream [especially uneconomical and inefficient wind farms] and the destruction of our countryside then please register your objection to the Government by googling "petition 22958" and following the link.

Please pass this message on to Councillors, members of your community and anyone else you know to persuade them to sign up too. If you are really concerned about wind turbines please write a letter promoting this petition to the Editors of your local newspapers.”

“wind turbines are in fact very clean and efficient (about 98%), in terms of the output energy compared to the energy required to manufacture and install them

a wind turbine producing a peak output of 2MW is likely to be active 30% of the time so that the total energy available over a 25 design life would be:

2MW * 30% * 25 = 15 MW-years OR 131.5 million units (kWhr)

2MW turbines used locally seem to cost about £2.25 million to buy & install so the bare cost of producing energy from them would seem to be only 1.7p per unit

the current system of subsidies to wealthly land-owners is certainly egregious but this is a manifestation of the unwillingness of Government to seize control of the Primary Energy industry and go against free-market fundamentalist orthodoxy, not an inherent property of wind energy or other renewable technology.

the variability of output from wind farms means that they cannot simply be tacked onto the grid for the reasons expressed above. A much more imaginative approach is needed: the eventual aim must be to de-carbonise our entire energy infrastructure. This can be accomplished by using much of a very large renewable capacity from a variety of sources to generate hydrogen by electrolysis of water. Hydrogen can then be stored for use as back-up fuel when there is no wind, or used to create methanol or other synthetic liquid fuels for transportation.

By resorting to methanol as a substitute for petrol, we can keep our internal combustion engines (with the convenience of using a liquid fuel) and existing liquid fuel storage and distribution infrastructure. This has to be a better option than attempting to replace cars with electric vehicles and having to build as many battery-swap garages as there are now petrol stations

While renewable energy may come from a variety of sources, it so happens that on-shore wind is the cheapest option and has the sheer capacity to provide much of our Primary Energy demand, currently 240 million barrels of oil equivent per year or over 300 GW

any alternative candidate for an energy source would have to be examined carefully with a full analysis of its fuel cycle. Structures built at sea may require materials whose inherent energy cost approaches or exceeds the anticipated captured energy which would render them worthless.”