borderslynn

Application Ref : 13/00789/FUL

I am writing to object to the development of “Windy Edge Wind Farm”, a proposed development comprising of 17 wind turbines up to 121.5m high to tip AND associated infrastructure, on land North East and North West of Farmhouse Braidlie, (Windy Edge), very close to Hermitage Castle, near Hawick

The Council and the Scottish Government both acknowledge your “right to the peaceful enjoyment of your possessions” in their wind farm guidance. Well, this plan takes all that away from our isolated, remote landscape. It will no longer be a place for hikers to head for to enjoy the significant Watershed which runs into Windy Edge from Cauldcleuch Head.

In the Infinis Design and Environment Plan the land to be targeted for industrialization is described as:

“Remote, wild land character…….An empty landscape with few overt signs of human intervention…..”

It seems SBC in their Figure 14 of their Wind Energy Strategy have for some time discarded this landscape and deliberately encouraged wind farm developers into this remote area by identifying it as applying Minor and Moderate constraints. This is , in my opinion, stultifyingly insane to not apply their own policies to this magical, untouched area namely:

SBC Policy & Consolidated Structure Plan 2001-2018, most notably:
_ _Policy N9 – Maintaining Landscape Character – the integrity of the landscape character and enhancement of its quality must be maintained.
_ _Policy N14 – National Archaeological Sites: Development proposals which would destroy or adversely affect the appearance, fabric or setting of Scheduled Ancient Monuments (who can ignore the jewel in the crown of Liddesdale, Hermitage Castle?) or other nationally important sites not scheduled, (The White Dyke is just one example), will not be permitted.
_ _Policy E22 – Protection and Tourism: Development proposals which are considered likely to have a significant and sustained impact on tourism will not be permitted. (Newcastleton will become a ghost village at this rate).

A YouGov poll for the John Muir Trust on 26 June 2013 reveals overwhelming support for the proposal that “the 20 per cent of Scotland’s landscape identified as ‘core wild land’ – rugged, remote and free from modern visible human structures – should be given be special protection from inappropriate development including wind farms.”

3 OUT OF 4 SCOTS WANT WILD LAND PROTECTED FROM WIND FARMS

If you read “Ribbon of Wildness” by Peter Wright (http://www.ribbonofwildness.co.uk/), you will see in Chapter Two his description of climbing Peel Fell in England , then crossing to the start of the Scottish Watershed, describing the diversity of peat and peat bogs he names as a ‘living habitat’.

He travels from Hartshorn Pike, then Wheelrig Head. He notes the overgrown Wheel Causeway, the route between Jedburgh and Carlisle of medieval times. Just beyond Rushy Rig runs the B6357 road from Bonchester Bridge to Newcastleton known as ‘Note o’ the Gate’, thought to have that name from the journey Mary Queen of Scots took to visit her injured Bothwell at Hermitage Castle. When her horse stumbled she was advised to ‘tak note o’ the gate’, or watch the road.

Then Singdean Farm and the Watershed climbs to Wigg Knowe, next Fanna Swire. Back in the forest onto Laidlehope Head and Crow Knowe, then Kiln Knowe and a view of the broadleaved tress planted along the B6399 Hawick to Newcastleton Road. Then on to Whitrope Hass and Sandy Edge. At this point in the chapter, Peter Wright says “it is hoped that the energy, enthusiasm and interaction which volunteers bring to conservation and the environment can be unleashed in the forests, and especially on the regeneration of the wider wilder Watershed.”

From Sandy Edge is viewed the Whitrope Railway tunnel, hewn beneath the Watershed in 1860. Then the Watershed re-emerges just before Leap Hill and on to Greatmoor Hill with Wauchope Forest behind. He sees “ring ouzel, curlew, dunlin, redshank, hen harriers, buzzard, raven, merlin, peregrine falcon, black and red grouse……….a rich and varied picking for the ornithologically inclined”.

Then to Swire Knowe using an ancient crossing through a gap in the Watershed ridge, with, to the south the Queen’s Mire, where Mary Queen of Scots was said to have lost her timepiece when she fell from her horse returning to Jedburgh from Hermitage Castle. Then Windy Edge leading to Cauldcleuch Head, the highest hill in Roxburghshire at 619 metres.

This is a special place and why 3 OUT OF 4 SCOTS WANT WILD LAND PROTECTED FROM WIND FARMS

Wildlife:

“Remote, wild land character…….An empty landscape with few overt signs of human intervention…..”

This could be said of much of Scotland. It has not changed since it was formed. Here in the Scottish Borders we know the land was formed out of the bed of the Iapetus Ocean as it travelled over millions of years from the Southern Hemisphere to be locked into other land masses which form Scotland. The colliding of lands then pushed the ground up into these now famous rounded slopes of the Scottish Borders in which we happily live.

It is Nature in the raw. It must be retained by Nature for us to leave alone except for the occasional intrepid hiker. It is a refuge for wildlife from the most microscopic to larger wild goat, deer, mountain hare and the like. These cannot be measured and quantified. The ecology and biodiversity is extensive and would take researchers years to record any square mile of it. It must be left untouched; for the future of such places are, in my view, sacred. Anyone who uses the word ‘NEGLIGIBLE’ to describe the amount of harm which might be done to this area by planting turbines here is a person who is either ignorant or is accepting their 30 pieces of silver for saying so.

Reading the ornithology, flora and fauna, hydrology, peat disturbance reports, one would think these giant turbines were parachuted in and speared into the ground without any ecological damage whatsoever. Infinis describe drilling into the peat, building roads, batching cement, digging the infrastructure needed to connect to the grid, and burdening the ground with the weight of many tons of turbines over 20 months of building the farm as likely to result in NEGLIGIBLE damage. You don’t need to be a scientist to realize what damage can be done; a simple act of irresponsible gardening can destroy habitats and add to the extinction of bees and other insects.

Those who have desecrated the Scottish Landscape building windfarms will leave a legacy of ruin to the fragile ecology of this once beautiful land. This is eternally unforgivable.

500 wind turbines have been approved since February 2013 in the Scottish Borders. We understand the target is 1000, especially as the SNP government is putting pressure on our Scottish Borders Council to accelerate approvals. Each wind turbine, taken separately, like a car on the road, does not kill too many birds or bats. But cumulatively, with 6,000 turbines in Scotland to date and a plan to reach 10,000 before 2015. it does not take a genius to mentally calculate the damage. The RSPB and Bat Conservation Group are always asked about the impact on birds and bats per wind farm. They will always say it is not as great as road kill. But the road kill figures are national and the windfarm is not. Add up the cumulative figure nationally and you have a sizeable chunk of bird and bat deaths laid at the feet of the wind turbine industry.

Recent studies by bird protectors reveal how the giant blades chop up the air in brutal fashion. “Golden plovers avoid the wind turbines,” says Potsdam-based ornithologist Jörg Lippert. Swallows and storks, on the other hand, fly straight into them. The barbastelle bat’s lungs collapse as it flies by. A “terrible future” awaits the lesser spotted eagle and red kite, Lippert says.
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wind-energy-encounters-problems-and-resistance-in-germany-a-910816.html

The impact on this famously wild and beautiful land is tearing the heart out of Scotland. Developers de-populated Scotland during the time of the Clearances in the name of ‘Improvement’ and now you who make these decisions over land use, are allowing developers to destroy the very fabric of Scotland, exploiting its last resource, its wilderness.

Argument against land use for turbines:

According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, 1 gigawatt of a nuclear power station requires 30 acres, a gas-fired power station occupies 15 acres. Solar power requires 5 square miles of desert.

A typical nuclear power plant produces 1,000 megwatts of electricity per hour.

Wind energy requires 1,000 square miles onshore.. At 25 megawatts to 1500 acres for a wind farm of 60 to 70 turbines, you would need 60,000 acres and 2400 to 2800 wind turbines to equal 1,000 megawatts.

Wind turbines only produce their full power when the wind is blowing just right. That only happens about 25% of the time, so you really need four times as many wind turbines and four times as much space to produce, on average, 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour. So that’s, 240,000 acres and 9,600 to 11,200 turbines. 240,000 acres is 375 square miles.

Wind and solar require fossil producing backup power stations when the wind does not blow. The attempt to develop clean burning of coal at Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife,has still not happened, but this pouring of C02 into the atmosphere must continue to at least 2025 to backup the wind turbines. This is the third largest coal powered station in Europe. Scottish Power is the only energy company in the UK working toward capturing carbon on a working coal-fired power station. But this nut is not cracked. The investment costs are enormous and that money is not yet available.

To quote James Lovelock, (The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning” 2009) one of our greatest living scientists, “Europe’s massive use of wind as a supplement to base load electricity will probably be remembered as one of the great follies of the twenty-first century – an example of impressive engineering misused by ideology and as inappropriate as passenger transport by hydrogen-filled airships.”

Ruth Lea’s paper, ‘Electricity Costs: The Folly of Wind Power’, was published by Civitas in January 2012. So the concept of ‘Folly’ persists. An analysis of this paper concludes:

The disputed costs are presented as adjustments to the Mott MacDonald study, but the same case can be made without them. In the Mott MacDonald analysis, offshore wind remains an expensive large-scale generation option, whether projects start in 2009 or 2017. Onshore wind is more costly than gas or nuclear, depending on the start date. Adding £20/MWh of costs for the consumer takes its cost above both alternatives. Wind power certainly makes a contribution to reducing Britain’s carbon footprint, but it is far from being a cheap option.
Ref A Second Look at Wind-Related Electricity Costs Nigel Williams

The Northamptonshire Campaign to Protect Rural England paper, ‘Windfarms : Time to Change Direction’ clearly explains, amongst other important points, the problems the National Grid has to struggle with to cope with windfarm generation of electricity. Storage is the big technological problems which remains unsolved worldwide, so selling the excess energy abroad is the only option, and that is done at a loss.

If we had conquered electricity storage then built turbines, it might have made sense. But personally, I can’t imagine it ever making sense.

Denmark has led the way on onshore wind. It now has more than 6,000 wind turbines for a population of just over 5 million people. It’s national power company has stopped supporting new onshore wind turbines because they can’t store excess energy and have to sell it on to neighbouring countries at a loss.

The fact that our UK National Grid is ten years away from developing a system which can exploit windpower seems to put the cart before the horse. (see their explanation of a ten year plan on their website).

We have 5 million people in Scotland like Denmark, and already have 6,000 turbines date and a plan to reach 10,000 before 2015. But, as yet, there is no National Grid SMART technology to cope with the excess power generated, no clever storage idea is emerging, and the SMART digital control of systems envisaged will be vulnerable to Cyber attacks.

We know a back up supply of power was always needed for when the wind was not blowing but the UK is committed to closing old power stations under EU rules. To avoid imminent power cuts, the UK is going to have to break those rules and keep power stations running, so why not also break the EU target for 15% renewables by 2015?

We can’t tailor power stations to respond to the infrequent conditions which bring the right kind of wind to turn the turbine blades at the ideal speeds. You can’t switch a power station on and off to suit fluctuations from windpower, They are like furnaces, they are damaged if you power them up then down. What will happen, if forced to do this, is an increase of pollution and carbon dioxide output.

In the paper :

‘Calculating carbon budgets of wind farms on Scottish peatlands’ it is stressed that careful future management of the land on which the turbines are placed is vital. Here is part of a summary extract:

……..If , however, the good management practices are abandoned. The habitat is no longer improved, the site is not restored and the floating roads sink and require drainage, the model indicates that greenhouse gas emission from plants and soil will increase to 20% of the total CO2 emission savings. Of this increase, 4% is due to loss of habitat improvement, 11% to drainage of floating roads and 85% to loss of site restoration.

I cannot imagine a careful management plan running for quarter of a century, especially as once built, the maintenance would likely concentrate more on the turbines than on the environment. Short term investors will have made their kill and run off long before these environmental matters are considered part of the package. No-one will be answerable, no policing will be enforced, no court judgments will be made. It will become a horror story for post windfarm children to deal with, and they will blame us for the damage that has been done.

As Friends of the Earth champion ‘green renewables’, we do not have to look far to appreciate how very un-green wind turbine manufacture is:

We are all guilty of enjoying our smart phones, GPS systems, thanks to rare earth mining in Mongolian rare earth capital Baotou.

One blog online refers to a 2011 report:
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/01/31/china-pays-the-environmental-cost-of-chris-huhnes-wind-turbines/

Because the environmental damage is half a world away, safe behind the wall of silence that only a Communist regime can maintain, thus it does not exist.

Every single Green scheme is the same as all the others, a tissue of lies, half truths and suppressed truths, it really is Climate Religion, because science and viable it is not.

And the next source I offer is from:

http://min-eng.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-real-cost-of-using-neodymium-in.html:

Although this is a very comprehensive report, they omit the life cycle analysis of a crucial component within the nacelle- the powerful direct-drive permanent magnet generator, which contains a critical rare earth element, neodymium. Neodymium is commonly used as part of a Neodymium-Iron-Boron alloy (Nd2Fe14B) which, thanks to its tetragonal crystal structure, is used to make the most powerful magnets in the world. It has been used in small quantities in common technologies for quite a long time – hi-fi speakers, hard drives and lasers, for example. But only with the rise of alternative energy solutions has it really come to prominence, for use in hybrid cars and wind turbines. A direct-drive permanent-magnet generator for a top capacity wind turbine would use around 2 tonnes of neodymium-based permanent magnet material.

The report concludes that whenever we purchase products that contain rare earth metals, we are unknowingly taking part in massive environmental degradation and the destruction of communities. It is a real dilemma for environmentalists who want to see the growth of the renewables industry but we should recognise the environmental destruction that is being caused while making these wind turbines………

And now we can calculate what each turbine at Windy Edge may use if:

Each 3MW wind turbine contains more than two tonnes of rare earths magnets. This market segment is expected to account for approximately 30% of the total magnet growth from 2010 to 2020.

………..China currently supplies approximately 95% of the global Rare Earths market. More than 70% of the supply of light Rare Earths are supplied from one mine in China. Mt Weld, with its very high grade contains light Rare Earths and is also high in Europium, a heavy Rare Earth.

http://www.lynascorp.com/pages/Wind-turbines.aspx

Fuel Poverty:

So far, eye watering sums have been paid to investors when their turbines have had to be switched off because of gales to avoid overloading the grid due to lack of storage capacity.

When we really need the turbines to provide energy, such as when the UK experiences seriously cold weather, there is rarely any wind blowing during the cold spell. Without more power stations (some will have to be nuclear ) we risk having power cuts, as has recently been explained by ministers. Industry will suffer such as when furnaces producing bricks and construction equipment will have to power down and resulting damage to the furnaces will occur.

Wind energy costs about two and a half times the price of nuclear energy and twice the cost of traditional fuel sources. However, it is not just the fuel itself. There is also the cost of building the turbines. The costs of the raw materials for that are increasing, and as the demand for wind turbines increases, so does the cost of building them. Added to that, the horrific payments to developers to shut down their windfarms because the National Grid has no use for the electricity is insane and consumers foot the bill.

In 2013, 5 million UK households are in fuel poverty, and that is a disgrace for a 21st century society. The vast subsidies paid via consumer energy bills has led to great harm to vulnerable people excluded from their human right to be warm and to eat warm food.

Roads and Transport of Turbines:

Denholm and Hawick are already suffering from road threats as the new turbines, to be built at Langhope Rig, have their transport routes identified:

This was in the Hawick News:

A schedule will be confirmed to communities along the route within the next few weeks.

We, like numerous others in the area, depend on Asda for our essential food supplies. They come from Galashiels to Hawick to Newcastleton as their regular route, using the B6399 . But if, as the Infinis report suggests, the road is used for transporting the Windy Edge destined turbines, then Asda and other essential road users such as the Post Office will have problems reaching us. They may use the alternative A7 and C24 when weather permits, but they will still hit problems when trying to get to the B6399 to get to Newcastleton or back to Hawick.

We read of a building being threatened with demolition in Denholm which is on a corner of a winding narrow road to accommodate the transporting of turbines. We know the Martin’s Bridge has been altered from its picturesque build to a wider, stronger (uglier) bridge to take the weight of these big loads on their way to Langhope Rig windfarm.

I do not want the character of these isolated roads in our area to be transformed into urban landscape road structures.

Once, as Infinis describe, 16 HGV movements per day and an average of 38 car /light vehicle movements per day throughout the 20 month programme have taken place, then the character of the roads will have been transformed into ugly industrial standard routes.

Driving to this area from Hawick down the lifeline road B6399 will be a nightmare whilst large loads are brought down what will be remembered as a pretty, winding and undulating road.

Hermitage Castle Setting:

To read the Archaeology report one could be seduced into thinking the ‘setting’ was in the immediate vicinity of the Hermitage Castle. Those of us who have soaked up the atmosphere know it begins en route, as far out as Whitrope Waverley Line as you drive closer to the magnificent Castle.

When driving in from the signpost at Burnfoot farm off the A7 it is an even more enthralling approach. You only develop this ‘setting sensation’ through regularly driving to and from the Castle. For new visitors, the approach remains the sudden appearance as described by the company employed by Infinis to limit the ‘setting ‘ argument.

Once the tourists have visited, they come again and again and eventually experience, what we locals have developed, an instinct for the setting from further afield.

It is an approach to Hermitage Castle which adds to the mystery of the final approach, full of atmosphere and stirring the imagination.

To stand on Greystone Fell and view the Castle is a thrill. To argue with Historic Scotland, as SKM Enviros does, that this view would rarely be used by visitors is nonsense. Many people walk up there to take photographs. To see giant turbines in the vicinity will wreck the photographs of this view of the classic landscape around the Castle.

Health issues:

I am asthmatic, likely due, a doctor told me, to growing up in the thick soot which covered Leeds City. Since moving here my asthma has hardly been a problem as the air is so pure and clean.

Reading about the dust created by the batching plants fills me with fear. I read comments from people in Dunoon who lived near a batching plant:

“…..dust from the sites and mud on the road, which turns to dust, combined with debris from passing lorries has meant that the quality of life for local people has been greatly reduced.”

He continued: “We have had reports of people with sinus, chest and nose complaints – and it all adds up to a feeling that something’s not quite right.

Acoustic vibrations:

Where we live, so near Windy Edge, we have Dark Skies to see the stars and a beautiful experience of wildlife activity brought to our ears each night. The interminable ‘white noise emitted by turbines’ known to often intensify at night, will wreck the usual wildlife interactions. The fells will amplify the noise too. We will no longer be able to listen to the music of the night by the wildlife orchestra.

We live here to escape the noise of human-kind, you will bring it to our doorstep if this monstrous industrialization goes ahead.

Aviation:

I was not too happy to learn the MoD operate an electronic warfare air space over us known by them as LFA13. It includes Windy Edge. I would have liked to remain ignorant, but either Infinis and SBC are equally ignorant, or they believe they can mitigate the MoD out of existence in their chosen Windy Edge spot.

This is the only place in Britain to operate the Electronic Warfare Tactics Range, based in Spadeadam. It is supposed to be vital to the protection of the UK . As we live on the other side of Stob Fell close to Windy Edge we experience regular training flights which often dip down to 100 feet over our cottage. Until this Application was proposed, I was unaware of the critical role these exercises play, and have felt alarmed reading about the war games played out over our heads. However, if their training stops the windfarm development, I will cheer every time a jet flies over.

I have read the MoD objection to Humble Hill 100 turbine proposal (near Keilder)
Source: http://www.countryguardian.net/modradar.htm:

“.the Ministry of Defence objected to the original proposal on the grounds that the wind turbines would interfere with primary and secondary radar therefore impairing the effectiveness of the nearby Spadeadam Electronic Tactics Range (EWTR). In an effort to overcome the MOD’s objection the Company reduced the number of wind turbines and reconfigured their location on the site.

Notwithstanding the “terrain screening tactics” alluded to by the Company, pilots flying in this area are subject to simulated surface to air missile attacks and respond with sudden low level evasive manoeuvres. Whilst pilots are carrying out such manoeuvres it is an unacceptable flight safety hazard to place 107 wind turbines each of approximately 240ft high in the same area”.

Having read about the EWTC, how could a windfarm proposal get as far as this Application when the MoD has always objected to any turbines in this sensitive area? Are 17 turbines a suitable mitigation? Having seen the jets swoop down over our small cottage, I could imagine a single turbine would be a hazard, never mind 17.

Already I note NATS at Prestwick have objected. How can Infinis mitigate away the danger to training flights within LFA13? No doubt they will reply ‘the threat is NEGLIGIBLE’. That word so inflames me every time I read it I wish I could eradicate it from the English Dictionary since it has become associated with mealy mouthed, money grabbing investors who misrepresent what windpower can offer to make a quick kill and disappear with the takings.

“It’s all an enormous swindle,” says Besigheim-based auditor Walter Müller, whose job involves examining the books of wind farm companies. His verdict? A fabric of lies and deception. The experts commissioned by the operators of the wind farms sometimes describe areas with weak breezes as top “wind-intensive” sites to make them appear more attractive. “Small-scale investors are promised profits to attract them into closed funds for wind farms that do not generate enough energy,” he says. “Ultimately, all the capital is eaten up.”

July 12, 2013 by Matthias Schulz in Der Spiegel

None of those who set up these windfarms will be around in 25 years. They will be long gone. But the monstrous follies will still be around decaying and reminding our children of where their parents and grandparents money was extracted from them via energy bills until no one could afford to keep warm in the UK. They will look on a dead landscape, littered with the detritus of these industrialized sites and not know the beauty we have seen before they were built. This is the tragedy of turbine madness.