Wind farms and truth in advertising

Promoters overstated the environmental benefit of wind farms - Telegraph

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has agreed to scale down its calculation for the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emission that can be eliminated by using wind turbines to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas.

The problem was the BWEA liked to use a figure based on older, dirtier coal fired plants; but as British coal power is much cleaner now, the BWEA is being forced to revise its claims.

The most interesting part, though, is the ridiculous number of turbines needed to make big inroads into renewable targets:

Hundreds of wind farms are being planned across the country, adding to the 198 onshore and offshore farms - a total of 2,389 turbines - already in operation. Another 40 farms are currently under construction.

Experts have previously calculated that to help achieve the Government's aim of saving around 200 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2020 - through generating 15 per cent of the country's electricity from wind power - would require 50,000 wind turbines.

But the new figure for carbon displacement means that twice as many turbines would now be needed to save the same amount of CO2 emissions.