Joining the dots of the proposed Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru — Glyn Cothi Wind Farm

Somehow after reading this article, wind farms just don't look a beautiful any more. Why can't we construct our own wind turbines here in Wales? Plenty of space in Port Talbot. Plenty of talent in Port Talbot.

A very comprehensive article! In their feedback to the precursor of Future Wales (the draft National Development Framework), Renewable U.K. Cymru estimated the maximum number of turbines that could be fitted into Wales, but they didn’t consider turbines as big as 200 m The simple fact remains that the National Energy System Operator (NESO) have for several years been estimating that Wales can produce well in excess of all future electricity demand only from offshore wind, so technically does not need any onshore wind However, the long term forecast is that Wales will always remain a large exporter of electricity, hence the rush for onshore wind - something that has never been explained or put to the Welsh people The National Infrastructure Commission for Wales recommended to government that onshore wind should be developed “bottom up” as community schemes with great involvement of the impacted communities, almost “by the people, for the people”, but this recommendation was never accepted! Lots more renewables are unquestionably necessary, but what, where and how is currently suffering a democratic deficit

Well researched and argued article, thank you. I now have a basis for my suspicions about why we are having this sneaked through, and can argue against it.

It is obvious that Sarah Eyles has not noticed that the countryside has been industrialised for decades now, massive farm sheds for chickens or cattle, machinery charging about, chemicals of many types, plastic everywhere and declining numbers involved in farming, 14% decline just between 2015 to 2021. You only have to drive around rural Wales to see the numbers of animals, badgers, foxes, birds killed by road traffic. But this is not whataboutism or attacking farmers who are trying to survive in a economic mayhem, just a fact. A number of claims are being made: 1) Wales produces more electricity than it consumes which is true, but take the gas plants out (and they do not run 100% of the time) and Wales is not self sufficient. Plus most of the gas is now imported as the Irish Sea and North Sea fields are depleted and the basins are mature in that no new large supplies are available. 2) No mention is made of the need to get rid of carbon out of energy production and energy use or the existential problem this is for us, farming, wildlife and humanity. 3) I would far rather a nationalised (or a co-op) company makes a profit out of wind farms so the profit can be reinvested in Wales and its people. The robber baron argument is one in favour of nationalisation. 4) Seeing the massive crowds of people at Llyn Brenig (a recent wind farm is operating there) or Llandudno (off shore wind farms obvious to all) I see no sign of wind farms affecting tourism even when it is right there in the tourists face. 5) National Grid has been planning a north south pylon connection. The connection will be undersea from Scotland to Abergele. But then instead of going along the Sea bed around Wales they want to plough it through Mid-Wales. How this is compatible with Welsh Government plans for a Berwyn - Clwydian National Park is not made clear. This is a continuation of the old problem we had with the CEGB who planted pylons through Eryri and over the Menai Strait and a Nuclear Power Station also in Eryri and on Ynys Mon. This grid connection is nothing to do with wind farms in Wales itself. Smaller connections could and should be sub-surface. 6) While Sarah maybe correct about wind farms on the Cotswolds the UK Government has lifted the ban on onshore wind farms in England and a 100MW wind farm is likely to be built near Rochdale. More plans will now come forward. This does not mean that all onshore windfarm plans in Wales need to be agreed. But I do disagree with this attitude that nothing should happen in rural Wales because it affects my property value, or affects my tourist business, or affects wildlife when most of it has already been massacred by centuries of abuse.

It’s true that wind farms and solar arrays are lucrative investments. But the suggestion that Wales is simply being “exploited” overlooks the fact this project involves Welsh Government ownership of Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru means profits can actually be reinvested directly into Welsh communities, creating jobs and funding public services. I’ll argue this should have been done 20 years ago and should be on a much bigger scale, but we are where we are. I’m curious to know - how else can Wales benefit from our fantastic resources? Fears about drops property values and decimated tourism are not based on evidence. If you look to Scotland, where onshore wind is much more prevalent, house prices near windfarms have not decreased. Loch Lomond has pylons crossing many of the glens and for many years. As for wildlife, construction must be managed, but the far greater threat to biodiversity is climate breakdown, not renewable energy. I also disagree with the article claims that the Welsh are being denied the right to “Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.” We’re not like ‘Indigenous peoples’ elsewhere, we Welshies are represented within by our own devolved government, which is directly accountable to the people of Wales. Vote them out next year. In fact, most of these plans will go in the bin when Reform come to power! As for the power generation, worth remembering the three biggest employers in wales all rely on eectricity from england. We can't operate as an island. We are a net generator, but we definitely can’t generate all our power needs for 24/365 and rely on interconnection with England and other countries to meet our demands. It’s always worth remember every country has to be a net generator for net zero to work! 

It is obvious that Sarah Eyles is a luddite who suffers from the distorted view that Cymru was at its best in about 1850, and that all change since then has been for the worse. If she is worried about damage to the landscape, why not campaign against sheep farming, which has been trashing that landscape for hundreds of years? You can plant trees around windfarms, whereas sheep eat every leaf that pops up, and result in ugly bare hillsides and impassable bogs everywhere they graze. Also , if she is concerned to protect the culture of Cymru, why complain about reduced house prices? Surely this would benefit young people wanting to stay in their home areas and buy a house? As for the other hysterical hyperbolic nonsense: yes there have been BESS fires, caused by faulty installation, lack of appropriate sensors, and poor maintenance. These are not insurmountable problems. So as an alternative, we could have pumped-water storage, as in Dinorwic, but Sarah and her fellow nimbies would rant against that too. Damage to landscape? Pylons do not damage it, they use a tiny amount of land, as do the turbines themselves. Threat to wildlife? Much less than road traffic and hunting. I regularly walk through the Brechfa windfarm and there is as much wildlife there as any other sheep-blasted high ground in Cymru. Sarah, if she wants to be taken seriously, needs to make clear whether it is renewables she objects to, or merely the private ownership of them It is not clear from this rambling essay which it is.If the former, she needs to come up with a realistic alternative that does not involve massive air pollution or the saddling of future generations with nuclear waste.

I look at the Welsh Countryside and I see complete and utter decimation no matter where you go. Vast forests have been chopped down in the name of ship building and industrialization in the 18th,19th and 20th centuries. Only to be partially replaced and by partially, I mean a fraction of... by coniferous plantations of rigorously ordered trees or left barren to be covered in invasive fern that lets nothing else grow, which periodically are burned each year usually through arson. I don't see meadows any more, or plains, I see industrialized farm land, where animals are forced to stay in basically one place, cow sheds, chicken farms... farms, farms, farms as if this were 'natural'. Even the brecons still have sheep roaming freely largely keeping the landscape barren. The lakes we see are very rarely lakes but instead reservoirs that have been fenced off because they are dangerous. Everywhere in Wales has been changed by human development and management. Even the national parks and the mountains have been touched and are currently managed. So it's a nonsense that wind farms are piece-meal industralisation. We already have full industrialization.

Well..a VERY biased article stating old information and blatant false hoods! Property values are NOT affected by wind farms. Wildlife is NOT decimated. Agricultural land is NOT irreparably affected. Landscape is NOT scarred. Tourism is NOT affected. What I have written has been proven all over, but the writer is instead pushing the 'NOT IN MY BACK YARD' narrative. I call BS and invite anyone to actually research!

Just imagine how much better the mountains would look if we stopped over grazing them. Turbines would add to that and be above where nature is thriving, not where we are decimating it.

It’s a done deal and there will soon be no view in Wales and a lot of England without wind turbines. Even more alarming is the rapid covering of good agricultural land with solar panels. Food inflation is 6% or so I believe. We are not going to be able to import the food we need for a population of 70 odd million. Hopefully we can eat electricity instead..

Whether these are government or private schemes they should be paying proper business rates which can be rebated by councils to local ctax payers. A similar arrangement is being discussed for pylons so why not windmills.

One of your prolific promoters of Wind Turbine Energy, on Nation.Cymru, as a serious viable energy contender for the National Grid of the future, albeit costly offshore, is Jonathan Dean who frequently signs himself as a 'spokesman for the Charity Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales CPRW' . How about protecting sea birds like puffins and gannets etc. etc CPRW? Do you think we are all sheep in Wales Dr Dean? We are certainly not populist recruiting Sergeant Majors even if you have taken the freebie King's Shilling for your charity.

I would say that Ioan Richard is being a little cruel to Dr Jonathan Dean.Dr Dean has pointed out that major Danish, Swedish and German renewable players within a forward looking EU framework are constructing a pan European supergrid based on hvdc interconnection which Wales should and could be part of.These players have 30 years of complex offshore engineering experience in direct comparison to for example Bute Energy naive onshore proposals.It is obvious that the present introspective Welsh Gov. have no idea how any of these systems work but any of the contributors to this comment could for instance look up National Grid plc and see who is running it or examine the CPRW chairman's recent promotion of its proposals. What is needed is a Cymraeg Renewables Citizen Organization outside of Senedd interference and its historic inability to do anything useful at all.

Maximum points for starting off with a C.S. Lewis quotation.