Critique of 'The Wind Farm Scam'

Introduction | Discussion of Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Conclusion | Appendix

ABSTRACT

The book entitled  ‘The Wind Farm Scam’ by John Etherington is being championed as a definitive text by anti-wind groups.  This critique considers the content chapter by chapter with a serious analysis.  The conclusion is that whilst some of the content is standard knowledge and therefore uncontested, much of the rest stems from an emotional predisposition against the visual impact of wind turbines that leads to prejudice and factual error.  The amount of electricity from central generation that is abated by wind power is a key issue, which leads, in an illogical manner, to doubt about climate change.  Encouraged by his publisher to state what generation he prefers, Etherington opts for nuclear power.

1.  PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION

John Etherington is an ecologist of academic and proven standing, having been Reader in Ecology at the University of Wales, Cardiff, and a former editor of ‘The Ecologist’.  In this book however, he departs from mainstream ecology to air his views on the technical and sociological status of electricity generation from wind turbines on windfarms.  In doing this, he frequently departs into emotional language and sentiment; for instance, he describes windfarm turbines as ‘wind monsters’* spreading ‘environmental harm’.  He owes ‘immeasurable debt’ to those he has contacted through associations of anti-wind protesters and lobbyists, ‘above all’ to the founder of the Country Guardians and to similar ‘Nimby campaigners’ who are ‘the heroic defenders of the land’.  As he prepared for the book, he became, in his words ‘abstracted, even obsessed, by the need to expose the failings of this damaging industry’.  Such opinions, expressed in colloquial and emotive language, appear throughout the book. 

Etherington’s book is widely quoted by individuals and groups opposed to wind turbine installations, especially if the turbines are near their homes.For instance, the long standing ‘Country Guardians’ organisation states “we were extremely encouraged by the publication in October of Dr John Etherington's book The Wind Farm Scam”**.

In this review, I will concentrate on technical and economic facts, hopefully without personal diatribe and hard feelings.  For me, renewable energy utilises the same flows of energy that sustain biological life, thereby sustaining human life and technology as part of the Earth’s total ecology.  I hope that John Etherington, the ecologist, would agree with me that it is our task as humans not to so overplay our actions so that we seriously damage ecology, ourselves included.   There are windfarms that may have done this in a local ecosystem, probably inadvertently. It is vital that the wind industry respects professional and academic ecologists who investigate and seek remedial action for any such damage.  However, ecologists cannot justifiably be concerned for climate change and other impacts of fossil-fuel and mining industries unless they respect the abatement of such impacts by renewable energy, for which wind power provides the main opportunity for electricity.

In analysing this book, it is useful to classify comment between (1) Science and technology, (2) Errors of substance, and (3) Emotive diatribe.  Not all comments are negative, as I seek to give credit where credit is due.

*All italicised quotations in this paragraph from page 11 of the author’s Preface

**www.countryguardian.net/, accessed 8/2/2010