Scotland's Renewable Energy Blog

‘Wind Farms Destroying Scotland’s Woodlands’

 Last weekend the Sunday Post became the latest tabloid to jump on the anti-windfarm bandwagon with a load of half-truths about forest losses to windfarms.  Here’s some of the things they said  with a bit of perspective added:

 ’Over the last decade 5000 – 10,000 hectares of woodland has been destroyed for wind farm development’

Reality check:
Across Scotland in the last decade a total of 60,000 hectares of new woodland has been created – so ten times more than has been destroyed.

 ’Forests absorb about 7.5 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per annum’

Reality Check:
A single 2.5MW wind turbine can save over 2,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

 ’It is the Scottish equivalent of cutting down rainforests in the Amazon’

 Reality Check:
Scottish forests are largely coniferous monocultures, making them biodiversity deserts compared to the Amazon. More new forest is being planted (see above) than is being felled, and the replanting includes a much higher percentage of mixed woodland.

 ’Questions remain over their effectiveness, with research suggesting they are much less efficient than the renewables industry claims’

Reality Check:
This is not a question of ‘research’, it is a question of publicly available figures which show how much wind electricity is produced each year by the Scottish wind turbine fleet. No ‘suggestion’ involved, just hard figures. And what exactly does the author mean by ‘effectiveness’?

You can see the article on pp 8 & 9 of the issue.

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 There are valid arguments to be made against the rapid development of onshore wind at the expense of other forms of renewables, but this kind of sloppy, inaccurate and sensationalist reporting is unacceptable.  This site will continue to monitor the press for inaccurate reporting of renewables issues – please contact us with any examples.