Dear Editor,
Having recently had
the chance to read through the report produced by the Cardiff Business School
and others about "Economic Opportunities for Wales from Future Onshore
Wind Farm Development", I would like to make the following observations.
Firstly this report reads like a large scale public relations exercise on
behalf of the wind energy industry - not surprising since the exercise was
funded mostly by the wind farm developers who stand to gain by its
findings. Secondly, at best, the report
may be seen as a large scale business
plan with little attempt to provide any critical analysis or what any
self-respecting economist would provide, such as cost benefit analysis. Thirdly
there are many underlying assumptions made which are not spelled out e.g. that these
developments will not involve extra costs for local inhabitants e.g. traffic
congestion and property devaluation etc. etc.
Figures are
confidently provided on Gross Value Added (GVA) and Full Time Equivalent Jobs (FTEs)
without any detailed explanation as to how they were arrived at or how much
confidence we may have in their accuracy. From the perspective of producing a
new wind farm, the vast bulk of these jobs will be temporary and thus will not
be sustainable in the rural localities where most of the turbines would be
sited. I suggest the average number of new wind farms required per year, of
something like five to meet targets, will inevitably involve large scale
developers such as RWE with their own specialist staff and, as this report
indicates, contracts will be given only to large scale firms, mostly outside
Wales. Of course, profits and consumer provided subsidies will go to
shareholders, also mostly outside Wales and in some cases overseas. The only
way that wind farm development can provide us with such a bonanza is if there
was large scale turbine production in Wales - something that this report's
authors rule out!
Finally, there is a
built-in paradox in the report in that developers and the Welsh Government
prefer rural sites where there is more wind and less inhabitants likely to
complain, whereas from an economic perspective, to reduce transmission costs
and find more local contractors, these structures would be built near large
towns or cities. The answer is probably to build all wind farms offshore where,
even if more costly, there is a lot more
reliable wind and thus more turbine output.
Yours truly,
E.J. Razzell, B.Sc. Econ., Master Mariner.
N.B. This letter is unlikely to be published in the newspaper because of its length.
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