Wind turbines' environmental effect defended

Wind turbines should be seen as a form of "rural sculpture", according to Dr Eddie O'Connor, the former managing director of Bord na Mona.

Dr O'Connor is now involved in the alternative energy business.

His firm, Future Wind Partnership, is pursuing several wind energy projects.

He told The Irish Times that there were enough potential wind farm sites in Ireland - particularly in Co Donegal - to generate "thousands of megawatts" of electricity without causing negative environmental impact on the landscape.

"Wind is our biggest natural resource, bigger than all of Bord na Mona's peat or Bord Gais Eireann's natural gas," he said.

"It's a huge resource that we cannot afford to ignore, especially if we are to contain our carbon dioxide emissions."

Dr O'Connor conceded that there were "a whole lot of areas", such as the Ring of Kerry, where wind farms would not be permitted because of their visual impact.

But he insisted that this could be minimised by the careful siting of turbines.

"You will always find a certain number of people who object," he said.

"For any project, the local community tends to divide on a 50/50 basis. But in subsequent market research, whether in California or Europe, 91 per cent of people are positive to tolerant."

Dr O'Connor said his company made a practice of talking to local authority planners months before lodging any planning application for a wind farm project.

"If the planners are not happy with the siting of a project, I would walk away from it," he added.

Asked why most wind-farm developers prefer the sides of mountains to, say, the flat land of a cutaway bog, he said it was a rule of thumb that wind speeds increase in higher elevations and this made the cost per unit of electricity generation more economic.

He also said the cost of wind power technology was "coming down all the time by between 5 per cent and 10 per cent a year".

In addition, a private sector now existed in Ireland with the confidence and capability to advance alternative energy projects.

The funding problem for wind farms had also been "cracked", with all but one of the major banks prepared to lend money for such projects.

All the sector required now was a political decision to provide strong and consistent backing for wind energy.