Dear Editor,
The truth is finally dawning on countries within the European Union that dependency on wind power as an answer to future energy needs is as daft and futile as attempting to fill a bucket with water when that bucket has a gaping hole in it.
Holland has already abandoned its EU renewable energy target, announcing that it is to slash its annual subsidy by billions of Euros; and France is currently reviewing theirs as UNESCO looks on with a keen eye as that body is, rightfully, concerned about heritage sites and their associated historical environment in France.
But when it comes to our small nation, Westminster has, arrogantly, stated that they have the right to set up Wind Farms on every acre of Welsh land should they wish to do so, regardless of any historical, cultural or environmental attributes concerned. So, we can look forward to years of having to suffer our main and minor roads, towns and villages being blocked by these monstrosities as they are being transported to every part of Cymru before they are finally stabbed into the earth of our motherland at the sites of their new home.
There will be no end to this nightmare until every bit of open land has been ripped up and filled up by these alien monsters – and then, we are expected to live amongst them – and who in their right minds would want to – not to mention visit our motherland, that was before this current ravaging, still beautiful despite the ravaging of the past.
If this ‘absurd’ strategy is allowed to continue in Wales, in time, there will be no living Welsh communities left; who would want to live in them? There will be no sound of children playing and laughing in the yards of the closed down schools. There will be no bird song as there will be no birds - apart from headless ones, and hardly any wild life. All that Visit Wales will have as attractions on their promotion literature will be castles, drowned communities, hundreds of Wind Farms and an endless pylon infrastructure.
Yes, the picture for the future is both horrifying and sad – and one that could still be avoided if the Welsh Assembly in Bae Caerdydd had enough backbone to say NO!...ENOUGH IS ENOUGH –especially considering that even Westminster has now had to face the raw fact that wind power is totally unpredictable and therefore is totally ineffective, with the subsidies being paid out to the developers often amounting more than the energy being produced – and, if that isn’t bad enough, it has transpired that Westminster is now being forced to consider the advice of their own Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and energy companies such as Centrica (owners of British Gas) that 17 gas-fired plants worth about £10 billion will be needed by 2020.
It is intended for these gas-powered stations to stand idle for most of the time, but to be there as a backup to the wind turbines at times when they just do not work and do not produce the energy they’re meant to.
What kind of madness is that? Of course, It is us the taxpayer that will have to pay the cost of the necessary subsidies needed to keep these mostly idle plants on standby; even though we’re already paying towards the cost of the wind turbine development through hidden costs in our energy bills.
But, saddest thing about all this in regards to Cymru is that a ‘Cymro’, a past activist of the Welsh Language Society, is a wind farm developer that’s playing a leading role in this latest hideous ravaging of our motherland. Eryl Vaughan (aka Fychan) is the ‘Welsh face’ behind the development of these unsightly and useless wind farms all over Cymru and without any doubt, he and his company Windpower Wales knows exactly how ineffective they really are and, what long term effect they will have on Cymru.
The bad news does not end there. I have to sadly reveal that Eryl Vaughan and Windpower Wales is also busily at work bribing Cymric national institutions and that the National Eisteddfod, the Urdd Eisteddfod and MYM (the Cymric nursery school movement) have all already accepted a bite of their poisonous apple in the form of ‘sponsorships’. These ‘sponsorships’ make the Developers out to be ‘good people’ eager to help Cymric communities but in reality of course, The Wind farm companies need to carry out this form of ‘bribery’ in order to win the support of the Cymry throughout Cymru for the times when they submit their applications to develop these wind farms all over Cymru. What’s really very ironic and sad is that institutions that exist in order to strengthen and promote the Cymric language and culture and Cymric way of life, are unwittingly ‘hoodwinked into taking a bite from the poisonous apple that is being offered to them, and by doing so, will undoubtedly, in time, contribute towards the destruction of those very elements of Welshness that they have protected and nourished for centuries.
Having been prewarned, let us hope that no other Welsh institutions or movements are ‘hoodwinked’ in the same way and that we will not witness the aforementioned institutions ever again biting from poisonous apples.
Siân Ifan
