Carol Dunton, Woodfield Crescent Town, Ivybridge, writes:

With reference to Katie Reville's letter in last week's Gazette, I say No to wind power in this area or any other. I challenge Katie's assertions as being inaccurate, not supported by scientific evidence and totally wrong in many respects.

Exactly what polls have indicated that the British public are in favour of wind power and that these include people in the South Hams? To be meaningful, poll questions have to be unbiased towards any desired answer and directed to a wide cross-section of the population in sufficient numbers to give a true result. Perhaps Katie can enlighten us on her sources of data?

The visual impact of these large structures is one aspect of the argument for or against; but it is ludicrous to suggest that they would boost tourism, or that they look in any way pleasing, or that most people do not mind seeing them in any field near them (after all they will always be in someone's field near to other people). But the main strength of the argument against wind power is its unreliability and the very small and expensive amounts of electricity generated by any one turbine. For example, the gas turbine at Plympton is capable of producing 895 Megawatts of electricity whether the wind blows or not; the output of one large wind turbine can be expected to be 0.85 megawatts. Therefore you would need over 1,000 wind turbines to attempt to replace the one Plympton power station. And if the wind drops below the level required to produce any electricity, then the lights go out, computers go down and we start building fires! .

In spite of Katie's assertions that objectors must hold shares in the fossil fuel industry, I do not hold any financial interests in any sources of power generation. But common sense and a little research has quickly revealed that Katie Reville and her small but vocal minority of supporters seem to have suspended their intellect in support of the new age religion that is obsessed with man's contributions to climate change and belief that the UK can save the world!

We are a very small island and therefore our effect on the climate is very small and insignificant. If our power becomes ever more expensive, our industries will fail. I am passionate about keeping our energy bills down and our old and poor people warm and safe this winter. I believe that the enormous feed-in tariffs offered by Government to wind-power producers cannot do other than keep those bills becoming ever larger.

An article in The Guardian on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 by Damian Carrington, states that "the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India. The capacities of the new plants add up to 1,400GW to global greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of adding another China – the world's biggest emitter. India is planning 455 new plants compared to 363 in China.."

May I suggest that Katie and her team tackles climate change by lobbying India and China to desist in the construction of new coal fired power stations? Their building programme dwarfs any effect on climate change we make by constructing a few Gigawatts of renewables.