‘Lincolnshire looks set to be overtaken by a tsunami of steel!’ Pylon campaigners accuse Government and National Grid of ‘greenwashing’ public concerns
A campaign group has accused the Government and National Grid of ‘greenwashing’ its data.
No Pylons Lincolnshire say recently-released information fails to acknowledge ‘the many concerns the public have’.
The group was formed after it was revealed the National Grid was running a consultation on a £1.07 billion project to lay 420 pylons across an 87-mile stretch between Grimsby and Walpole, near King’s Lynn, to bring in power from off-shore windfarms as part of a major infrastructure upgrade.
“The tidal wave of new energy infrastructure heading for Lincolnshire looks set to be overtaken by a tsunami of steel following Government pronouncements and new reports released just before Christmas,” a No Pylons Lincolnshire statement said.
“The document Clean Energy 2030, released by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to accompany a speech by net zero tzar Ed Miliband, reveals that more than a million acres of land could be taken up with new energy infrastructure in the next ten years.
“The report contains masses of data, but presented in such a way as to be impossible to break down by region.”
The group, however, says there is a ‘huge drive forward to generate more wind-powered electricity, both onshore and offshore, and hundreds of thousands of acres taken up with solar to produce two-and-a-half times the energy the UK will actually need’.
“The report declares that by 2030 the UK will produce 47,000 megawatts of solar, 29,100 megawatts of onshore wind-generated power and a further 50 gigawatts of offshore wind power. A total of 126,100 megawatts of energy with battery storage of 27,100 megawatts,” the statement continued.
“The aim is to ramp that up by 2035 to 69,400mw of solar, 37,100mw of onshore wind power and 50gw of offshore wind power - a total of 156,000mw with capacity to store 28,700mw.”
Cat Makinson, a founder member of No Pylons Lincolnshire, spent two days analysing the report and crunching the figures to best estimate the impact.
She found that:
* On average solar needs five acres of land per megawatt - equivalent to 235,000 acres by 2030, and a total of 347,000 acres by 2035.
* Onshore wind turbines take up an average of 20 acres per megawatt - so impacting 582,000 acres by 2035 and 740,000 acres by 2035.
* Battery storage averages at 1.25 acres per mw so by 2030 that will take up 33,875 acres and 35,875 by 2035.
“Add all that together and the impacts are 850,875 acres by 2030 and 1,122, 875 acres by 2035 - 1.8 per cent of the total land mass of the UK and almost 3%of farmland,” the statement said.
“This is substantially more than the often-quoted loss of 1% of farmland nationwide.
“What is not yet clear is how much of that will be aimed at Lincolnshire. But flat, windswept Lincolnshire with its gentle-sloping seashore is favoured for both solar and wind-powered energy generation. It also has masses of the best arable land in the country, growing 39 per cent of all UK vegetables.”
Cat said: “This is energy production at the cost of food security. This is a much, much bigger loss of farmland than we could ever imagine. Coupled with new rules on inheritance tax it all looks very precarious for the nation’s food security.”
No Pylons Lincolnshire is now challenging the Government to make the data available by region to better estimate the effect on Lincolnshire.
Another report released on Wednesday (December 18) by National Grid plc has sparked fury with campaigners accusing it of greenwashing.
They claim the R110-T3 Business Plan is ‘conspicuous in avoiding the word pylons except for a few brief mentions of prettier areas where pylons are actually being removed’, stating there is not a single sentence in its 101 pages about the thousands of comments and views expressed to National Grid in opposition to pylons.
“In the report Lincolnshire is lumped into the north east, an area stretching from rural, agricultural south Lincolnshire to the industrial heartland of the north, including Sunderland - areas which have very little in common,” the statement continued.
“Much information in this report is redacted, including costings and even environmental benefits.”
No Pylons Lincolnshire’s press officer Andrew Malkin said: “The British public, which will be paying for all this, is the biggest and most important stakeholder.
“This report is greenwashing and fails to reflect, or even acknowledge, the many concerns the public have.
“The authors have cherry picked to give this the best possible gloss.”
The group has now contacted MPs asking for clear, transparent and up-to-date costings, especially given that EGL2, cabling to England from offshore Scotland, is already £1.3 billion over budget.
Two days before Christmas, the long-awaited feedback from National Grid plc to the public consultation it held on its Grimsby to Walpole pylons plan, which ended more than nine months before, landed on some residents’ doormats.
“It is a text-book example of whitewashing,” said Mr Malkin.
“National Grid has again played fast and loose with the numbers who attended the consultation events. It’s perhaps no great surprise that it has failed to accurately reflect what we know was an enormous opposition to pylons.
“Most frustrating were the three hand-picked frequently asked questions. One response uses outdated figures for which National Grid has consistently refused to be transparent - even refusing to supply this information to Lincolnshire County Council. It beggars belief that community benefits in lieu of landscape devastation was really a frequently asked question.
“And the response to reasons why an offshore grid could not be built is feeble, patronising and offensive. National Grid replied ‘There is no fully offshore solution to connect offshore wind to the grid. We have to bring the power on shore somewhere’
“The suggestion from this response is that they think that we think the offshore power just stays offshore. We have consistently made pleas for offshore power to be cabled undersea for as long as possible, coming onshore as close as possible to where the power is most needed, preferably on brownfield sites. National Grid’s response demonstrates the contempt with which it holds anyone with ideas and suggestions different to the ones about which it appears to have already made its mind up.”
A spokesperson for National Grid said: “We shared costs for the Grimsby to Walpole project at our public consultation last year, which generated a lot of interest with nearly 3000 people attending in person events, and more than 7,300 pieces of feedback.
“At approximately £4.2bn for an onshore high voltage direct current underground cable alternative, £6.5bn for an onshore high voltage alternating current cable and £4.3bn for an offshore subsea cable, all are at significantly greater cost than the approximate £1bn cost of the onshore option we are proposing.
“Our role is to find a way to take green energy from where it's generated to where it's needed, and we share our plans with Ofgem to ensure value for money for bill payers.
“We consider all technology options and then balance a range of factors, including what’s possible from a planning, engineering and environmental point of view and share these with local communities.
“We are very grateful to the local community and stakeholders who have shared their views with us.
“We are carefully considering their feedback as we continue to shape our proposals, before holding a further public consultation later this year.”
