Wind power has a defect: it only generates when there is a breeze, so it's no good for supplying peak electricity just when you need it. The Danes get around this problem by importing lots of electricity from Sweden and Germany, thereby passing the pollution problem to someone else, as well as quietly making use of Sweden's atomic stations. If the Danes didn't import electricity, they'd have to have more gas plants and so make even more emissions.

A series of events on bats look set to be overshadowed by problems affecting the mammals' chances of survival, according to an expert. Anne Youngman, the Bat Conservation Trust's Scottish officer, said wet weather may have hit the breeding season for a second year running. ...On the agenda is a presentation on wind farms in mountain areas of Portugal. Ms Youngman said: "Wind farms were a hot topic at the last symposium. "In Germany, there are turbines above forests and the mortality rate of bats has been found to be high.

Discussion of energy in Europe today tends to be dominated by what are described as environmental issues, chiefly the question of carbon emissions and global warming. So much so, in fact, that the rather more urgent matter of security of supply is all too often overlooked. But it is now becoming acute. ...the greater threat to Europe's energy supply lies at home, in the looming prospect of a growing gap between demand for electricity and the capacity of power stations to supply it. The problem is probably most acute in Germany, which is committed - on politically compelling but rationally inexplicable grounds - not only to building no more nuclear power stations, but to closing down those it already has.

He says "Winston Churchill once said that we in England have a countryside worth dying for. And I'd be damn well wiling to do just that, to stop the turbines."

In response to Scottish industry's concerns that its lights may go out, Britain's power industry had to admit it would not make one iota of difference as wind power is too unstable to be included in any calculations of how much power is needed to satisfy the country's needs - whether or not the wind is blowing our power stations will still burn the same amount of fossil fuel.

Well now we have it, a local landscape destroyed, wind developers sensing embracement, support, and easy pickings, banging on the planning door, and a council in denial that this local wind rush was not only started by them, turbines are out of control, and they can no longer contain this rural industrial carnage, after all how can you reject what you claim is a "positive contribution" that you fully "support and embrace".

Companies like ECO2, Gamesa and Airtricity should beware - we are not going to take these intrusions into our lives lightly. We will use every means at our disposal to thwart your plans.

The disfiguration of the landscape by the sinister, silent wind turbines is undoubted. A vast army of the rotors will be needed to get anywhere near replacing the output of the nuclear plants, and the desire of environmentalists to replace nuclear and fossil fuel sources of energy with renewables increasingly looks like an impossible dream.

I am totally with David Watt in the need for an independent commission report on Scotland’s energy supply system. Such a commission must be entirely scientific/technical. The place for the renewable power enthusiast is in the political arena, once the hard facts have been established. There is a great deal of deliberate dishonesty in this debate. Wilfully ignored is that wind power locks us into carbon production, for the expensive back-up generators needed during the down-times must be carbon producers, gas, coal or oil. Also ignored is the carbon cost of the extra economic activity necessary to pay the enormous subsidies needed to meet the high costs of renewables and of the back-up power stations. It may well be that when the sums are done, with honesty and rigor, the switch to wind power will actually increase the overall carbon emissions; though of course high energy prices driving industry and jobs abroad, would have a very beneficial effect on our carbon emissions. This would be a great consolation in the dark winter’s nights.

Why, then, are we so "fixated" with wind? ...Part of the answer may be that wind turbines are visible, tangible symbols of political commitment and moral righteousness. Mr Clegg's party wants 15,000 of them, and the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, also a Lib Dem, has described them as "beautiful". The rest of the answer appears to be subsidy. The Government pays an indirect subsidy and putting up a wind turbine is the cheapest way to collect it.

Do none of these Mooney-like green zealots realise the idea of having one of these obscene blots [wind farms] on the landscape located close to you is about as attractive as living in the central reservation of your nearest motorway? There is considerable evidence that shows these turbines are not just undesirable, they're positively dangerous.

Here is my challenge, Mr Hain. If Ffynnon Oer wind farm provides all the electricity for 17,000 occupied homes in the Neath area, as you claim, then how about disconnecting those 17,000 homes from the National Grid and supply them solely from the Ffynnon Oer wind farm for one month, this summer? If they do not suffer a power cut in that month, I will give you my farm park tourist attraction, worth at least, £2 million. If they do suffer a power cut, you need only give me £1,000!

The decision by the Scottish Government to deny planning approval to the giant windfarm on Lewis should be applauded. It is the first glimmer of light in the whole tortuous debate on renewable energy. The previous Labour/Lib-Lab executive had no coherent strategy for wind energy, simply offering lucrative inducements to power companies and land-owners which led to a stampede to erect giant turbines. Hundreds of applications are still in the planning pipeline, many of them in wholly inappropriate locations which would threaten endangered flora and fauna and industrialise some of Scotland's most spectacular landscape. Worse still, by destroying deep peatland, as would have been the case on Lewis, these wind-farms would create more carbon emissions than they would ever save.

ELVIS is not still alive and living in Brazil. The Royal Family had nothing whatsoever to do with Princess Diana's death. And Marilyn Monroe died of nothing more sinister than a drugs overdose. All of which will convey to you that I am not normally one who believes in conspiracy theories. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the dullest and most obvious explanation is usually the right one. However, I am beginning to join that rebellious group of people who - whisper it - are becoming less, rather than more, convinced of global warming. An enormous industry is growing up and some people are doing very nicely thank-you on the back of climatic change. One can only wonder at the scale of scientific grants. One thing we don't have to wonder about is taxes - any excuse. And the business to be in today is undoubtedly the manufacture of wind turbines and hybrid cars. The most recent alarming report, by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, tells us Glasgow will need 1344 wind turbines by 2050 and Edinburgh's cars will have to be cut by a third. Inverness will have to be a model of eco-brilliance and will have to be forbidden from its planned expansion

When politicians call for a "national debate", it is a sure sign that the most dubious policy is about to be railroaded through, whether we debate it or not. That is what lies at the heart of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown's portentous declaration yesterday of a "green revolution". Thousands of new wind turbines are set to be built across the UK over the coming decade as part of a GBP 100 billion plan for renewable energy. What a dissembling cheek the Prime Minister has in suggesting we hold a "national debate" on the wind-farm "revolution". The die is cast and the EU-imposed target of 15 per cent of renewable energy has long been set. Where was the "national debate" about that?

My opposition to windfarms is not because they are not pretty, it is because they are a con, in that they don’t deliver and will not help save the planet, and support for them takes away from other technologies that really might make a difference.

..his assertion that renewables will create thousands of jobs is completely refuted by the Scottish Executive report on Developing Skills for Scotland's Renewable Energy Workforce. This report states that "the labour requirements of the industry will be modest".

I must reply to the letter from Simon Pipkin, project manager at Gamesa Energy UK, in a recent Observer. He should have declared an interest because, unlike the people of Gilfach Goch who have nothing to gain from the Gamesa development, he and Gamesa UK have everything to gain by way of the massive subsidies that will be paid for by us. So whatever he says must be weighed against the fact that it is in his interest to sell the idea that wind farms are needed. Like many of the politicians, he insults our intelligence by suggesting these wind farms will save the planet. He claims the development will prevent 26,900 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year - I suspect he got that figure out of a Christmas cracker.