Sir, - Readers may be aware of what has been called 'a bad news day.' This is when an embarrassing or controversial bit of news is released without fanfare when the popular media are concentrating on something “big”, such as the gulf of Mexico oil disaster, or the World Cup. Such an episode happened recently whe

n it came to light that, such is the scale of wind power in Britain now, that on a windy summer evening there is no demand for the electricity that the turbines can produce and they have trialed paying the operators to stop their turbines and paying them compensation  for the loss of potential earnings.
Since their earnings were subsidised, the compensation has to be of similar amount, and in the trial they were paid 18p per unit for energy they did not produce.
If windpower becomes a larger share of the generation capacity this will become common practice, unless there is a huge increase in the capacity to store energy.
The recently built Glen Doe scheme would have been very suitable for pump storage, but  the subsidy regime  made it commercially unattractive.
One new nuclear power station could replace  the output of  more than 1600 large wind turbines, and  thanks to continuing development over the last 40 years, be much cleaner and less environmentally damaging than the first generation of such stations.
If you are concerned about energy efficiency, it is worth noting that the waste heat from the coal-fired power stations on the east coast, could supply Edinburgh’s heating demand several times over, but presently warms the Firth of Forth and North sea.
The SNP and others have set their face against nuclear power on the basis that it detracts from our clean image.
So dessecrating the countryside with large numbers of heavily subsidised wind turbines is a better image than an unobtrusive power station whose output is reliable, safe, and much cheaper – unless the burueaucrats get their sticky fingers involved.


Sandy Henderson,
Faulds Farm,
Braco,
Dunblane