Fracking V Wind Turbines

As the Luddites and local cowards on Lancashire County Council attempt to put a lid on fracking, not a single word on what could be the advantage of exploring and extracting the largest known reserve of gas and oil reserves in Britain.

As FEAR overtakes rational debate and investigation, the Loonie Greens are dancing with joy as they sabotage any attempts for Northern Industries and Jobs to leap into the 21st Century.  A quick perusal at a report on their beloved wind turbine should dampen their enthusiasm, but it will not as they are too engrossed in their lunatic beliefs, like fundamental religious nuts, oblivious to anything but their ideals.

When Professor David MacKay stepped down as chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) last year, he produced a report comparing the environmental impact of a fracking site to that of wind farms. Over 25 years, he calculated, a single “shale gas pad” covering five acres, with a drilling rig 85ft high (only needed for less than a year), would produce as much energy as 87 giant wind turbines, covering 5.6 square miles and visible up to 20 miles away. Yet, to the Greens, the first of these, capable of producing energy whenever needed, without a penny of subsidy, is anathema; while the second, producing electricity very unreliably in return for millions of pounds in subsidies, fills them with rapture.

More research is good, but not if wind experts are told what to find

There are allegations that suggest the Senate Committee is less interested in truly independent, high-quality research than its members might claim, and is instead recommending to the NHMRC the researchers whose work they would like to see included in future assessments.
Those allegations would seem to be supported by the following exchange from the committee’s hearings on Friday, between Senator Back and the NHMRC’s executive director for evidence, advice and governance, Samantha Robertson:

Back: Are you familiar with [Simon] Carlile and the work he does in neurophysiology?
Robertson: Not personally, no.
Back: Ok, [he is] at the University of Sydney, so perhaps I could urge that you do.

That is not what I would call independent, and nor do I think it is likely to lead to high-quality science. This is nothing to do with the quality of Carlile’s research, but rather the principle of scientific advice to government. It is the NHMRC’s job to select the most relevant science and present it to government, not the other way around.

In the UK, the spectre of FEAR and MORE FEAR is raised whenever anyone asks pertinent questions, or even points to the problems of costs and removal of sites once the turbine has become obsolete.