KEY FACTS

Some key concerns to be aware of ……….. 

Where does all the Money go?

As an example, in 2019 Berry Burn wind farm received £8.4m of Public cash (paid from our own power bills & taxes) with over 70% of that going directly into profits for local Local land owners & foreign developers, in Berry Burns case the sovereign wealth funds of China & Norway. Less than 2.5% came back in Public benefit spread across Moray communities (187k) yet the entire impact is carried by Moray through the industrialisation of our wild areas, severe threats to critically endangered wildlife species, disturbance to our peatlands & forests around the headwaters of the Lossie, increasing the likelihood of serious flood events in Dallas & Elgin. Local operational employment is close to zero whereas the negative impact on local business & employment opportunities is huge.

Damage to Morays Landscape Character

New Turbines of up to 226m are threatened across Morays wild uplands – industrializing our spectacular scenery and impacting the Cairngorm National Park, Malt Whisky Trail and the Speyside Area of Great Landscape Value amongst other beautiful corners of Moray.

Cumulative Impact

In the heart of Malt Whisky country, an amalgamation of developments threatens to create a single massive 300 turbine Upper Lossie Wind farm – making a mockery of the Scottish Governments own recommendations on Cumulative Impact & Spatial Separation.

What the German Greens founder now admits

Germany is a fine example of what’s in store if we remain blindly committed to Industrial Wind. Even the Green’s founder Otto Georg Schily has declared Germany’s renewables policy an “Economic, Social and Ecological Disaster”.

Why? Because it is a classic redistribution from the bottom up, forcing the poorest consumers to line the coffers of bloated energy companies. It has also cost more jobs than it ever created, and actually increased carbon emissions due to inefficiencies introduced into the system. Turbines consume vast quantities of additional fuel and raw materials, whilst spewing emissions during the manufacture, transportation, construction and maintenance of the enormous machines and their uniquely demanding infrastructure.

Wind Energy AMPLIFIES the growth of fossil fuels

A new observational analysis using data from 10 European Union countries affirms the devastating conclusion that wind power installation “preserves fossil fuel dependency” because for every 1% increase in the installed capacity of wind power a quarter as much again is required in backup.

Subsidising Inefficiency

Compensation payments of more than £500 million have been made to wind farms over the past eight years - to switch OFF turbines - latest figures show. Known as Constraint Payments, a new monthly record was set in September 2018, when over £28m was paid out by National Grid to stop electricity generation, in ONE MONTH. Most cash was paid to Scottish wind farms, with some individual wind farms earning more than £1m a month for NOT supplying power! Paid for entirely from our own taxes & green levies, on top of all the other negative impacts we suffer from this ludicrous policy

Green Subsidies

The cost of green subsidies more broadly continue to rise, and will cost £66 billion in the next five years, approximately £2500 for every household in the country, according to the latest figures from the Office of Budget Responsibility.

Potential Damage to Local Economy & Tourism in particular 

Moray Speyside Tourism trumpets our Natural Landscape as one of Morays key assets. Visitors to Speyside treasure the iconic wild uplands of our internationally famous malt whisky country, essential to the Moray’s high value tourism offer. We need Morays wild open spaces to attract tomorrows Doctors, Teachers and the Entrepreneurs who will create Morays businesses of the future.

The chairman of the John Muir Trust, John Hutchison, who lives in the Highlands said: “Global energy corporations are exploiting the Scottish Highlands, which is widely regarded as being one of the most beautiful regions of Britain, and indeed the world. This poll suggests that up to 17.5 million adults across Britain may think twice about visiting areas where the landscape is blighted by turbines. That represents a serious long-term threat to those areas whose economic lifeblood is tourism.”

Drainage & Flash Floods

Disturbance to our peatlands, sediment risk from the removal of hundreds of thousands of trees & the disturbance to delicate drainage dynamics amongst the springs & hill streams feeding the Rivers Spey, Findhorn and Lossie risk damaging wild fish stocks and seriously exacerbating flood risks across Moray. 

Threat to real Moray Jobs.

Developers are quick to trumpet the vast wealth their future developments will bring to Moray and the number of jobs they will create. They’re much slower to come up with credible details of what they’ve actually contributed historically. The fact is that while jobs are created during the short construction phase of any project, many key roles require specialists brought in from outside Moray on short term contracts. How many local people do YOU know who have a sustainable long term job in Morays’ Industrial Wind Industry? Monitoring is increasingly automated and centralised out of area and “one man in a van” can service a development that has blighted vast tracts of Moray and combined to threaten hundreds of tourism jobs as well as alienate incoming talent who should be contributing to the sustainable Businesses of Tomorrow.

Impact on Natural Habitat & Bird Migration

Hundreds of thousands of trees will be removed, precious peatlands destroyed and delicate drainage dynamics disturbed. Nesting sites for rare hen harriers, merlins & hobbys risk being disturbed and Wild cat & Pine Marten habitat destroyed.

Birds & Bats

“As a result of the rash and hasty expansion of renewable energy from wind power, the populations of almost 50% of all bird species have significantly decreased”.

“The most widespread destruction of nature since the Second World War”

 German Wildlife Foundation (Oct 2017)

There is endless evidence of birds being killed by turbines, sometimes in huge numbers, as well as of bats dying in their thousands from barotrauma, where the ultrasound generated by turbines explodes their lungs. The Industrial Wind Industry of course choose to deny this. Watch the below video and make your own mind up (about birds at least).

Noise & Health Concerns

Sadly noise impact on children is harder to illustrate and you can guess what the Industry has to say about it but, as with bird strikes the growing body of scientific evidence cant be wrong either. Health issues associated with homes & schools close to industrial turbines are coming in from all over the world. The WAUBRA Foundation in Australia recommends a 10km setback distance but more recent studies suggest the impact can be broader still.

“A pilot study carried out in Finland shows that the damage caused by infrasound from wind power plants will only decrease significantly more than 15 kilometres away from wind turbines. The study was carried out by the Finnish Association for Environmental Health in spring 2016. It has been noticed from experience that after the construction of wind power plants, usually within a few months, people in the surrounding area have begun to get a wide range of symptoms” Markku Mehtätalo, Chairman of the Finnish Association for Environmental Health.

Hundreds of turbines being built off the Moray coastline

Beatrice offshore is costing £2.6 billion so a giant multinational can rake in £400 million every year.

Moray East & Moray West are in planning & development stages, the latter bringing most impact to Moray. Our iconic coastal areas will become like a donut, with massive turbine developments visible both inland & offshore. We shouldn’t have to tolerate this, given the inefficiencies & expense of this flawed approach.

Clean Green?

·       Each typical 3MW turbine requires …. 335 tons of Steel; 4.7 tons of Copper; 1200 tons of Concrete (cement & aggregates); 3 tons of Aluminium; 2 tons of Rare Earth elements; zinc; molybdenum, all drilled, mined, extracted & processed using fossil fuelled machines before being transported thousands of miles across the world. 

·       Turbine blades have a short life span and their composite material cannot be recycled, ensuring a legacy of industrial size spoil heaps across the World. Just look at the USA experience - if developers fail to honour their decommissioning commitments across California, what chance of Moray having any success?

·       Non renewable power alternatives have to run in parallel with Industrial Wind to guarantee a consistent supply – but unlike many of todays modern alternatives (including hydro, solar, tidal and clean gas & nuclear) these back up options need to kick in instantly, generating fossil fuel power in the most inefficient way possible

The Save Wild Moray team can be contacted on: hub@savewildmoray.com