For many years security of supply has taken a back seat in energy policy. We have been more concerned with price and, latterly, reducing emissions. ...security of energy supply must also be put back on the agenda with an equal priority. That means developing a mix of renewable generating forms including wave, hydro and biomass, which have more predictable output than wind turbines.

A landmark court ruling has ordered that Jane Davis be given a discount on her council tax because her £170,000 home has been rendered worthless by a wind turbine 1,000 yards away. This is effectively an official admission that wind farms, which are accused of 'spoiling countryside views and producing a deafening roar', have a negative effect on house prices. ...One of these impacts is of course safety. In June this year a 16-foot wind turbine blade smashed through a farmhouse roof in Northern Ireland as the farmer and his family slept inside.

I am extremely concerned at the detrimental impact the construction of wind turbines on the land adjacent to High Elms Lane, Benington could have on wildlife. It is well known locally that this site supports a large and varied wildlife and many of the species are of national and international importance. It has taken a long time and sympathetic farming to encourage so many species to thrive in this area. A total of 26 mammal species (not counting bats) and 75 bird species have been recorded around the proposed wind farm, along with various amphibians and reptiles.

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.

Energy secretary John Hutton yesterday gave the go-ahead to plans to build eighteen 125-metre high turbines, at Middlemoor, near Alnwick. But it cannot be built until energy giant npower comes up with a way of preventing the turbines interfering with RAF radar systems. Nick Blezard - chairman of the Save Northumberland's Environment, which opposed the project - says this is effectively a refusal given the radar issue. We can only hope he is right and that the Government - reluctant to admit defeat - is spinning Middlemoor as a "go-ahead" knowing that the radar caveat will halt the project.

It is bad enough to be told by the First Minister that Scotland's landscapes are to be sacrificed to achieve irrelevant SNP targets for renewables but he now claims that another reason is to help Europe achieve theirs. I refer to the disgraceful announcement that the gateway to Scotland, the A74 at Abington, is to be covered by 152 x 406 foot (that's 90 feet taller than Big Ben) turbines spread over 11,707 acres (18.3 sq miles) of our countryside.

Casting about for the least unpopular "solution" to the problem, politicians find a seductive answer: wind power. The wind power debate is full of cant which the bemused public cannot evaluate. Misrepresentation is inevitable where vested interests have so much to lose. Take away the enormous subsidies, and all the wind generation applications would disappear in a flash. If our politicians claim vision and courage, they should concentrate on strategies to generate real economic and environmental benefits and deliver long-term social advantages.

But what of wind's performance as an energy provider? Wind generation does not provide a reliable supply of power. It must be ‘shadowed' by baseload power stations such as nuclear and coal as it is intermittent. Over-reliance on it could lead to supply interruptions if the wind does not blow, blows too hard or does not blow where the wind farms are located. Importantly, such high-demand periods of cold and hot weather correspond to periods of low wind so overdependence on intermittent wind can actually increase carbon emissions as conventional power stations are required as back-up. Importantly wind farms perform well if their average output reaches as much as 35% of their generating capacity, but this rarely happens. Evidence shows that, throughout Europe, wind turbines have produced on average less than 20% of their capacity in recent years.

Your reporting of the Government's energy policy focuses on the supply problems that make the building of 7,000 wind turbines onshore and offshore by 2020 infeasible (News & Christopher Booker, June 29). But there is worse hidden in the 267-page consultation document. ...It is not until page 228 that the document says: "We will also need to consider the potential environmental impacts such as those on biodiversity, landscapes, air quality, soils and land as well as the marine environment." So much for our landscapes and historical assets.

Power stations cannot be minutely adjusted to suit wind variations and this results in back-up so that there is no fossil generation displacement and consequently no emissions saving. Wind farm operators who claim X thousand tonnes of CO2 savings are being conjectural, and there is no evidence of any saving.

The reaction of environmentalists to these developments shows how apparently strong principles can be set aside in favour of certain right-on technologies. Try to sink one 15,000 tonne oil platform in the North Sea (as Shell attempted with the Brent Spar platform in 1995) and Greenpeace will vilify you, but announce a plan to plant 7,000 concrete and steel pylons - each weighing 2,000 tonnes - on the seabed and you will be an eco-hero.

Since Gordon Brown on Thursday launched what he called "the greatest revolution in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power", centred on building thousands of new wind turbines, let us start with a simple fact. Nothing conveys the futility of wind power more vividly than this: that all the electricity generated by the 2,000 wind turbines already built in Britain is still less than that produced by a single medium-sized conventional power station. ...herein lies the central misconception which bedevils the entire debate. Because of the wind's intermittency, turbines generate on average at less than a third of their capacity. Thus to contribute 10GW would need 30GW of capacity, which would require up to twice as many turbines as ministers are talking about - needing to be erected at a rate of more than four every working day between now and 2020.

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?

The unreality of our energy policy is now such that the Government talks about building 10,000 giant turbines offshore - at a rate of more than two a day - when it knows that neither the technical nor practical resources exist to achieve more than a tiny fraction of that figure. Furthermore, as was recently admitted by Paul Golby, the chief executive of E.ON, one of our leading energy companies, even if we could build all those turbines, we would have to build dozens of conventional power stations to provide 90 per cent back-up for when the wind is not blowing.

Your recent Word on the Street comments probably reflect the general opinion that wind power is the way forward - because that is what we are told, repeatedly. This mantra has seeped into the public psyche over the last 10 years, often along with the threat that if we don't have wind turbines everywhere we will have to have nuclear power stations. The bad news (that ‘they' don't want us to know) is that we will have to have nuclear power stations anyway.

As one who lives within two miles of the proposed Newlands Wind Farm I have read carefully the community newsletter distributed by Bolsterstone Plc which will be building these three massive wind turbines and making money out of them for the next 25 years. The newsletter states that windfarms are ‘one of the most reliable and cost-effective renewable generation technologies'. This makes me wonder whether a company that makes such absurd claims is fit to be involved in this important project. ...These turbines would not be built unless there was a considerable element of government subsidy, although the proponents of these schemes prefer to use the word ‘incentives'.

A Scottish Government spokesman forecasts that the rate of growth in electricity generated by renewable sources (excluding hydro) over the next three years will be 46 per cent per annum and that by 2011 the renewable electricity target of 31 per cent (5,000 megawatts) will be met (your report, 23 May). Once again, the Scottish Government persists in mixing up capacity with the much lower levels of actual electricity likely to be generated.

With the publication of the Friends of the Earth document "Wind Power 20 Myths Blown Away", fully endorsed by Minister Jane Davidson, I was highly amused at the very clever way it has been worded - and the way it has neatly avoided giving a full and balanced picture. It is a veritable symphony in spin. ...I am surprised that Davidson's advisers let her be a party to this biased "report". If we take just one of the twenty - No 17: Wind farms harm property prices. The FoE document quotes two reports saying they don't. Well, the planning inspector who turned down the appeal by Renewable Energy Systems against the council refusal for 10 wind turbines at Rhos Garn, Llandysul, thought differently. He referred to a property owner near the site and said: "I can well imagine that if this proposal was allowed, he may well have difficulty selling his property."

Despite repeated requests, no-one on the "pro" side will tell us how much electricity is generated by these devices when the wind fails to blow; the best answer we get is that they can be sited where the wind never does fail, but even if such an onshore site exists it is not claimed that the wind-force is consistent throughout the day. Secondly, we are told that they emit only 20dB of noise which, assuming it is true, may seem - and indeed is - trivial. But the term "dB" is widely misunderstood ...I would question the figure, as I have stood within earshot of just one of these things and "whisper" it did not; moreover, the sound of a "farmyard" full of the creatures can be readily imagined.

I have been told that Viking Energy intend to instigate a planning process in September. Environmental impact assessments have not yet been published and may not be (and need not be) until the day that planning application is submitted. This gives little or no time for public debate or consultations on these. This also says to me that VE have already made up their mind that the environmental consequences of the wind farm and cable are acceptable. Once the planning application is submitted, and the planning process underway, promises that "if the people of Shetland don't want this it won't go ahead" are empty because the final decision is taken in Edinburgh, not Shetland. I guess that VE's response to this will be that they have a mandate to instigate this process - I bet they won't test this in a referendum.