Young Family Members will abhor the ramifications of YOUR activities: On THEIR Lifestyles and THEIR Planet!

Powerful NGOs, well-rewarded lobbyists, industry bosses, influential individuals and Parliamentarians – supporters of renewable technologies, are chivvying for 35 GW of onshore wind:

Economy-wide coalition of companies and organisations urges Government to support onshore wind

Onshore wind has by far the lowest capital cost per MWh of generation, of any renewable technology.


Do you have any idea of the capital cost of 35 GW of onshore wind?

What about the capital cost of the equivalent 10.5 GW of nuclear power?

35 GW of onshore wind is 65 Whitelee-sized windfarms. They would have a capital cost £39.00 billion and would generate intermittent electricity, for their 22.5-year lifespan and occupy 3,445 km² of land.

10.5 GW of nuclear power is 3.22 Sizewell C-sized nuclear power plants [npps]. They would have a capital cost of £51.53 billion and would generate 24/7 electricity, for their 60-year design life from sites occupying 2.16 km² [1/1600^th of the area].

The capital cost of onshore wind for 60 years of generation increases by a ratio of 60:22.5 and rises to £104.00 billion  
2X the capital cost of nuclear.

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The Capital Cost of a Technology Reveals the dark side!

There is no hiding place! There is no room for obfuscation.

If the capital cost of a technology is high, it tells of:

Unnecessary waste of precious material.

Wanton use of costly resources.

Excessive use of energy - fossil-fuelled for the vast majority of the time.

Unproductive involvement of high-cost labour.

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35 GW of onshore windfarms use an extra 15,180,000 tonnes of steel more than the nuclear power plants.

That will waste 84 TWh of energy

mainly fossil-fuelled energy [the lifespan generation of 2.9 Whitelees].

For all of that steel, 24,290,000 extra tonnes of iron ore will be used and 11,690,000 more tonnes of coal burned.

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For land-wrecking turbine foundations and roads, an extra 28,733,000 tonnes of concrete will be laid.

5.10 TWh of fossil-fuelled energy used ,  
966,000 tonnes of coal burned, 3,278,000 tonnes of CO₂ released.

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For the sake of the Younger Members of your Family, you need to:

Consider what the future holds for them, in economical and environmental terms, long after you’re gone.

Search your conscience if your support of renewables imposes upon them:

2X the capital cost; 18X the unwarranted waste of precious materials and resources.

The attendant GHG emissions and fossil-fuelled energy use every step of the way, from mining/quarrying, through processing, manufacture and installation.

Envision for them, their experience of 1600X the scenic desecration, ecosystem destruction, species wipe-out and waste mountains.

U-Turn your antipathy towards LOW-CARBON/RENEWABLE NUCLEAR POWER.

Make nuclear ‘happen’ by helping to negate the crippling cost of capital, through supporting Government proposals for pragmatic financing of npps.

Use your good offices and prominence to ‘tell it straight’, to the general public, politicians and the media.

Cease hiding behind the obfuscation and duplicity that defines the renewable technology industries.

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Note: 35 GW of onshore wind is 3.22X the onshore wind capacity required to generate the same total of MWh as 3,260 MW of nuclear power [e.g: Hinkjley Point C]. All of the figures quoted above are 3.22X greater than the calculated data from this link:

Hinkley Point C Vs Whitelee Windfarm: Steel [All Metals] & Concrete