Is on its way !

The Radio Authority announced on 21^st  May 2002 that Cornwall is on its Working List of areas which will be offered new local FM licences.  Two years of hard work by John Grierson and the CKFM team, a lot of lobbying, and a lot of patience and have paid off; Cornwall will have its second Independent Radio station.  CKFM started the process in May 2000 and, since then, CKFM has made all the running in gathering public support for the principle of a new commercial station for the County, and lobbying the Radio Authority.

There will be twelve new local licences in various parts of the U.K. and the process of advertisement will start “early in 2003”.  Cornwall is sixth on the list of those areas and the Radio Authority could be advertising for Cornwall applications in the middle of 2003.  The process is long and expensive, but at least we now know that a licence is definitely available.

 The award of licences is a competition – CKFM will not be the only applicant for the new licence.  “But”, says John, “we are determined to complete the job we started two years ago, and go all the way by winning the licence award when the time comes.  Support for the new Pure Gold station we want to operate is nothing short of overwhelming”.

CKFM owes a big debt of gratitude to the hundreds of people who have expressed their support for CKFM.  To all those members of Friends of the Lizard who helped – John extends a very big “thank you”.  If you have not yet expressed your support for John and his team, he would be very grateful for your doing so.  Call him on 01326 290 240.   Or e-mail ckfmkernow@aol.com.

The CKFM website may be found at: http://www.ckfm.co.uk

Letters to the Editor:

Wind Farms – the debate continues:
Members may recall that, in January’s Winter Newsletter, we published a forthright personal view on wind farms by our Vice-Chairman, John Grierson.  This was responded to by Diana Wilson, on behalf of Friends of the Earth, and published in our Spring Newsletter in April.  Our Chairman has now received the following letter from member Reinhard Mita, a former Vice-Chairman and Acting Chairman of the Executive Committee: 

I would like to join the debate on wind farms in the next Newsletter – my comments are:

I was rather disappointed by Diana Wilson’s response to John Grierson’s article in the January 2002 Newsletter.  As a scientist and a businessman, I would have expected some rather more useful statistics to back up her case in support of wind farms.  An impartial observer couldn’t form an informed opinion on the information presented.  It seems to me that there are some crucial questions to be asked, like:

How much conventionally produced energy is used, on average, to manufacture, set up and run a wind turbine for its lifetime?  How much energy can it produce in its lifetime?  If, as I suspect, the turbine actually produces less energy than it requires, it would appear that Mr Grierson’s view is valid and wind farms would actually add to our emission problems rather than reduce them.

Diana Wilson makes the important point that there is a continued need to develop land-based turbines, but doesn’t say why.  It is in fact to make them energy efficient rather than deficient.

Offshore turbines may, indeed, produce 30% more energy, but what are the emission costs of maintaining them?  I would speculate that it is in the region of 50-100% more than land-based units.

The real point about this seems to me that Friends of the Earth is supporting the development of the technology rather than the technology in its current state.  If it didn’t, it is likely that the technology would never be developed because, currently, the costs outweigh the benefits.

Is the current initiative to encourage the spread of wind farms an attempt to bring the technology to maturity more rapidly?  I suspect it is;  perhaps someone out there knows for sure.  We should ask, however, when will these turbines become energy profitable? 

In the meantime, it appears that the best place to do this sort of development would be on land, in windy places, where you also want to create some alternatives for people living off the land – such as Cornwall.

All renewable energy sources at present rely on older, dirty technologies for their existence.  There are, to my knowledge, no non-emission renewable energy strategies, other than hydro-electric, which actually produce a profit in energy terms;  again, perhaps someone out there knows differently.

It is important to note that wind turbines don’t alter the landscape permanently – they can be removed fairly easily at the end of their lives and the land is largely none the worse for it.  You can’t say that about hydro-electric.

Should we allow our landscape to be altered because we need to bring wind power technology to maturity?  History says “Yes”.

Reinhard Mita

Visit to Windmill Farm, Tuesday 11 June 2002

Windmill Farm is a new Nature Reserve managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and the Cornwall Bird Watching & Preservation Society, located south of Predannack Airfield and near the A3083 Lizard Road.

Our Chairman and Secretary were invited to the site’s official opening last autumn and, subsequently, our membership was invited by the Trust to see the site’s early development.  Callum Deveney, the Trust’s Reserves Manager, gave us a conducted tour of the different habitats, explaining how the detailed plans are being implemented.  We will return at a future date to see the progress.