Wind power is such a breeze in the long run

WHILE reading my copy of the Irish Daily Mail on Tuesday (September 26), the latest utterances of Wind Energy Ireland (WEI) chief executive, Noel Cunniffe caught my attention.

WEI's continued 'mantra' is for planning permission to be 'relaxed', so that more and more wind turbine towers may be constructed across this fair land (but not in their own back yards, presumably?) Mr Cunniffe seems to be contradicting himself in this instance, by stating, 'We are not asking for [wind energy] projects to be looked on more favourably - these applications need to be really robustly assessed - we're just asking for decisions to be made much faster.'

Again, Mr Cunniffe blames the high price of fossil fuels for driving up electricity costs (which also can be quite a bonanza for the wind farm owners) without looking at the big picture: The on-again, offagain nature of wind power generation during this year is adding to the cost of back-up (fossil fuel) power generators, Also, the fluctuating nature of Ireland's wind turbine generators is leading to a higher than usual importation of very expensive electricity from the UK and beyond, through Ireland's two electricity interconnectors.

TOM BALDWIN, Midleton, Co. Cork