Scottish & Southern Energy is advocating more hydro-electricity projects because wind farms need instant back-up when the wind abates (Scrutineer, 27 March). This is most interesting to those of us endowed with memory, for we've come around a full circle ...

Another area where the French have emphatically got it right is in power generation. After the oil shocks of 1973, France, with no significant oil or gas reserves of its own, embarked on a massive expansion of nuclear power, completely ignoring the doom-mongerers such as Greenpeace. The result has been an unqualified success story. Today, France has 59 nuclear power plants producing 78 per cent of its electricity needs. Electricity is so cheap and abundant that much of it is exported to the UK and Germany, earning the French economy about three billion euros a year. ...And because nuclear emits no carbon or pollutants, France is also one of the "greenest" countries in the industrialised world.

Introducing a few mountain hares near Beinn an Tuirc wind farm, at a cost of £30 each, is certainly a cost-effective way of getting good publicity for ScottishPower (your report, 24 March), but the question is will it do anything for the resident pair of golden eagles? ...Put simply, a well-located wind farm poses little danger to rare birds, but I have seen no evidence to suggest mitigation is effective, except of course in generating good PR.

The proposal, outlined to me in a letter from Scottish Power, suggests the wind farm is to be replaced with 10 new turbines that would reach an overall height in excess of 125 metres (currently 49 metres) with wingspans of 80 metres (currently 32 metres) - higher than Nelson's Column with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 747. I would suggest that this is hardly an overhaul but more a major redevelopment of current wind energy output in Cornwall. The proposed redevelopment of the wind farm will also be enlarged from its current site to include the erection of turbines along the St Newlyn East Downs and through to Fiddlers Green - a doubling of the current area of the countryside used and I suspect a development that must cause some concern to the residents of Fiddlers Green.

"Developers interested only in a quick buck are making different offers in different bits of the country, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are at the throats of councils, quangos at the throats of everybody, communities disquieted, and the national strategic interest forgotten about." The lack of leadership and the absence of a national energy plan had made some developers "unscrupulous", Smith claimed. "Irresponsible mischief" had been made by environmental groups and politicians, while Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency had been "curiously inflexible" he said.

Britian's biggest conservation charity, the Royal Society fir the Protection of Birds, announced Wednesday (February 20) that is was about to start issuing maps of important bird-flight routes in the North of England to help planners decide the future sites of wind farms. The first map will cover Cumbria with others on Morecambe Bay and the Lancashire coast to follow. ... We could get these monsters in the Dales because we are ordered to have them by the European Union. Its bureaucrats never listen to what people say because they consider us a mere nuisance. But they do pay attention to the environmentalists. With a bit of luck, the RSPB will say that these plans would cause too much bird kill - and we Dalesfolk could be saved!

UK Energy Minister John Hutton in December set out a grandiose vision of how this vast potential resource would be tapped. ...In breaking down exactly what Hutton proposed, Britain has to achieve a 60-fold increase in wind power in just 12 years. So far, the UK government has poured US$1 billion into wind power and has yet to see it deliver even a half-percent of the country's electricity needs. ... Whether these resources are enough remains to be seen. With the current international drive for a dramatic slashing of greenhouse gas emissions, Hutton will have had no problem making his 2020 announcement. Only time will tell if it was more about generating headlines than electricity.

By focusing on "landscape", however, the impression is given that it's largely the visual impact of industrial-size turbines that requires a "new approach" when, in fact, the whole environment is put at risk by ill-planned industrial wind-turbine development. ...For the Scottish Government's consultation on proposals for a Climate Change Bill to meet the real needs of Scotland's environment and the people, it's the depth of the environment that requires protection, not only its "world-class landscape".

What other country has politicians so gullible that they end up making their electorate pay to produce energy needed in another country? What other country would set a renewable-energy obligation that taxes its consumers to produce 18 per cent of electricity to compensate for the failure of England to reach its 10 per cent obligation? ...If England needs Scottish wind to fulfil its renewable energy target, surely English consumers should pay Scottish wind energy producers.

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.

We add our support to all who believe that the government should not approve the proposed Lewis wind power development. The impact of such a development on landscape, wildlife and community interests would not be justified. We believe it is time for the Scottish Government to address some fundamental questions over Scotland's energy strategy. ...The government has time to pause before granting any more wind farm approvals, to ask whether it simply wants to carry on the policies of previous governments, or whether it wants to demonstrate a better way forward for wind energy development. New criteria, set by the government, are needed to define the type of landscape within which modern turbines can be accommodated, along with height limits. We cannot depend on simply excluding such large industrial structures from the areas designated for their wildlife and landscape value and their surrounding mountains and moorlands. A new approach is needed in which a world-class energy policy has due regard for a world-class landscape, throughout Scotland.

For years, we in Lewis have witnessed with disgust the unedifying and unsavoury spectacle of certain individuals pursuing the aims of private developers hell-bent on the destruction of our natural environment in the hope of a completely unsubstantiated monetary gain. An independent report commissioned by Western Isles Council in 2005 cast serious doubt on the financial benefits and job creation prospects the Amec/British Energy scheme would provide for Lewis. It did accept, however, that the developers would make a killing, mostly from public subsidy levied on electricity consumers. ...For the record, 9859 representations have been received by the Scottish Government opposing the Lewis Wind Power scheme. A paltry 77 representations have been received in favour.

It is six years since I first referred here to "the great wind scam" - the bonanza enjoyed by the developers of wind turbines, thanks to the hidden subsidy we all give them through our electricity bills. Under the Government's Renewables Obligation, they receive twice as much for such electricity as they produce as the owners of conventional power stations: a 100 per cent top-up which makes our wind energy the most heavily subsidised commodity in history.

It is openly acknowledged that wind power is not viable without the substantial economic assistance which we pay for through higher taxes and electricity bills, that it is the least green of all the low-emission technologies, with significantly higher lifetime CO2 release than hydro, tidal and nuclear, and that it can never provide a significant and reliable part of our ongoing power demand. It does not "provide power for hundreds of thousands of homes"; it provides power for industrial companies in the south for commercial carbon trading.

Energy policy in Great Britain has been a shambles for years. Cowardly governments have turned a blind eye to repeated warnings over prices and supply. Disaster has been avoided thanks only to lucky escapes rather than good stewardship. A case study in the stupidity of the British government’s attitude to energy – aided and abetted by the European Union – is its continuing obsession with wind farms, a so-called sustainable source of energy which is costly, inefficient, unreliable – and ultimately unsustainable. The official line from London and Brussels has always been that wind turbines produce energy more cleanly and cheaply than any conventional alternatives ever could. ...The facts are clear: the United Kingdom’s 165 wind farms have failed to deliver on their promises: they are not significantly cleaner; they are certainly not cheaper; and they are already draining the pockets of the consumer, hitting the poor and needy hardest of all.

Media reports and a widely circulated letter suggest ministers are "minded to refuse" the application for the massive Lewis wind farm. RSPB Scotland supports the development of renewable energy to combat climate change, but has long argued that this proposal is in the wrong place. ...Most fundamentally, the letter concludes that the development would have "a serious detrimental impact on the integrity of the Lewis Peatlands SPA". Special Protection Areas are Europe's most important areas for birdlife, and European law requires such areas are given stringent protection. This is the key issue. Damaging developments are allowed on such areas only where there are no alternatives and there is overriding public need. This same legislation helped the Scottish Government to ensure ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth were better controlled - it is good to see it being applied properly again.

There is a fundamental issue of social justice which the green debate largely ignores. ...the costs of going green will disproportionately affect the relatively poor - the fuel "tax" to pay for higher-cost renewable energy; increased food bills as the push for bio-diesel takes land away from grain production

Supporters of wind energy may be underestimating the seriousness of the damage done to radar signals, and the ease with which problems can be corrected. Not for the first time, they may be guilty of making overambitious claims for the potential of wind power, while countryside champions increasingly rue the way wind farms spoil sweeping vistas. For its part, the Ministry of Defence may be too Quixotic. But this is a genuine conundrum, not a laughing matter. A cost-effective solution must be found quickly. It may be a simple question of coordination and communication. If so, it is high time that different branches of government came together to avoid an unnecessary and potentially damaging conflict.

The Scottish Government has inflicted the biggest injury on the reputation of Scotland as a place renowned for its natural beauty. The approval of the 68-turbine Griffin wind farm in the heart of Highland Perthshire has sounded the death knell to Perthshire's worldwide reputation as a jewel in the crown of Scotland's scenery. The 68 massive turbines would be seen from every hill and mountain top in the area, including Schiehallion, pictured. ...Why did the people living here not stop this?" The answer is that the Scottish Government listened to the power companies, not the people.

If we presume somebody has done the sums to calculate the cost to the environment of concrete, steel production and transport, why are not these numbers at the forefront of proposals?