Greetings EEVBees:
--Apparently the UK Government is walking back the statement by Energy Minister John Hayes. They confiscated his speech, but not before he had released a copy to the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail as LaurenceW will tell you is one of those publications which is concerned with sales, and this possibly because of the profit motive, which is always suspect.
--Please see at the bottom of this post a link to a later article, this one from the Guardian. Now, I do not know if the Guardian is concerned with sales and profitability or not, perhaps they have a Trust.
"The UK's power consumption continues to rise (odd recessionary effects aside), while we continue to pull the breakers out for the last time of our ageing nuclear power stations and inefficient coal plants. All of this is happening faster than anybody is prepared to rebuild capacity."
--In my limited Yank view all of this is not just "happening", it is a direct result of short sighted Government policy, and one not undertaken at the behest of those dreaded commercial newspapers.
"Narrow arguments about whether "wind is/is not the answer" only display the populace's ignorance, I am afraid. Aided and abetted by commercial newspapers. Windmills (where they weren't) are easier to see and complain about that massive power shortages in the coming years."
--Apparently the real problem is the ignorant populace being allowed to vote, the free press, and other outdated neanderthal principles of British law.
--See below the latest on the John Hayes walkback from an article in the Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/31/coalition-wind-farm-dispute-renewables--I often do not agree with the Guardian, but I see no reason to impugn it, since the solution to speech you do not like is more speech. And the Guardian article makes no charge that the previous article in a "for profit" publication was in any way inaccurate at the time of its publication.
--Finally, my quibble with Wind Power in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, is: "Does it perform at or near the levels promised when it was sold to the public? Repeatedly stating the Capacity rather than actual Power Output, and forgetting to count the cost of running power lines, tend to arouse my suspicions in this regard.
"I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. "
Margaret Thatcher 1925 -
Best Regards
Clear Ether