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UK Ministry of Defence deems wind towers a national security threat

Tuesday, April 30th 2013 - 21:00 UTC
Full article 21 comments

By John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com - Twenty-plus years on, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 threatened massive Western defence budgets, bereft of a major enemy like the “Evil Empire.” Read full article

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  • ElaineB

    LOL!

    Apr 30th, 2013 - 09:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Stevie

    Most unusual issue :)

    Apr 30th, 2013 - 09:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Frank

    Isn't this article 30 days late???

    Apr 30th, 2013 - 09:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Britworker

    What the hell does this have to to do with the South Atlantic?

    Apr 30th, 2013 - 11:20 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • RICO

    @4 it mentions a potential attack on Cornwall by Argentina LOL, they probably don't have the fuel to reach the Falkland Islands let alone Cornwall.

    Apr 30th, 2013 - 11:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Musky

    Yep Briton Watson Wat invented radar.
    The biggest wind farm is upwind of London, in the Thsmes Estuary. Not sure if MOD objected to this too.

    May 01st, 2013 - 06:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Be serious

    Mod are also objecting to a potash mine on the east coast. Presumably they are worried about Foreign invaders tunnelling their way in.

    May 01st, 2013 - 06:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • DennisA

    They certainly are a threat to our energy security.....

    May 01st, 2013 - 08:03 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Stevie

    4
    As much as the Gibraltar has to do with the South Atlantic?

    We all know this site has more to do with the spreading of Brit news than and views than the South Atlantic.

    No need to pretend elsewise...

    May 01st, 2013 - 08:21 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Zethee

    Not sure why people even mention that this website is about the south Atlantic. Everyone with braincell knows this website is all about the UK, Argentina and the conflict around the islands.

    Regarding the actual story, he says it himself “so Britain’s RAF is hardly unfamiliar with the principles of radar” The RAF are flat out telling him that it will cause them problems and they are the experts as he said.

    “So, who’s to send the threats? France? Spain? Argentina?”

    I'd say he was completely wrong in every way about this. The most likely threat is to come from the south east in the form of a hijacked commercial airliner.

    May 01st, 2013 - 11:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Teaboy2

    Am pretty sure a radar operator can see that the blip is not moving and always permanently in the same place every day making it clear its just a turbine. Am also pretty sure, that with today's technology they can change its on screen symbol to show as a fan to indicate its a wind turbine and not an enemy threat, especially when they will know the turbines exact location.

    May 01st, 2013 - 11:25 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Conqueror

    @11 What you have to think about are these differences. In the “old” days, i.e. WW2, the radar aerials were fixed. If you check out “Chain Home” on wikipedia, you will find that it consisted of “fixed cable array antennae slung between 3 or 4 30ft steel towers”. This was possible because of the relatively short range of aircraft. Meaning that they were most likely to approach from certain directions. Nowadays, radars tend to have rotating antennae. Therefore, the “blip” on the screen is constantly “re-painted”. So the operator would have to actually mark the screen to determine that a “blip” wasn't moving. But that is only a real “blip”. The turbines can also create false returns. With no way of telling without sending a couple of aircraft to investigate. The “author”, a website with a clear interest in energy provision, decided to mention “aircraft moving at hundreds of miles per hour”. How about much slower moving helicopters? Or tiltrotors? Either could probably hover for 10-15 minutes to see whether a fast jet turned up. If it didn't, away they go. Besides, given the known inefficiency of wind turbines, who'd want to erect two 115 foot towers for the sake of a few hundred kilowatts?

    May 01st, 2013 - 12:22 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Schneckster

    A turbine probably wouldn't show as a blip, if at all. But what it could do is disperse the radar signal causing blips to appear in other locations in an unpredictable way. In 1941, the mountains around Pearl Harbor caused so many moving reflections of the radar signal that the USAF thought there were attacks coming in from so many directions at once. Some stations reportedly gave up thinking the equipment faulty or useless in the terrain, and were switched off missing actual attacks they could have seen.

    And onscreen symbols are either IFF transponders (not radar, but something completely different) for air traffic control, or the stuff of fiction. Radars can't show what shape the object is, only that there is a reflection from an object it has hit.

    Military ATC radars are operated in the UK by the RAF. I think I'd trust their word before some bloke from Oilprice. If he can even tell me what lambda refers to, I'd be very surprised!

    I'm amused though, by the author stating that the MOD are denying the people of Cornwall their energy... what a load of bu.....!!! Wind turbines are rarely supplying power for more than 25% of the time, won't work if there's not enough wind, are shut down if there's too much, and generate only a fraction of what is needed when they do work.

    What the author should have said is that it denies the farmers the ability to rake in loads of subsidies, grants, and feed-in tarif cash for having them there in the first place... all of which, the people of Cornwall would be paying for!

    They are an EU driven con providing jobs and cash for the elite, while our bills increase to pay for it.

    May 01st, 2013 - 12:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • rylang23

    This is an honest question, and seems to fit with some of the questions in this thread today. Who owns the Merco Press? I have looked, but didn't find the owner. Since the leanings (as well as the editorial content) of the articles is clearly British, I would guess a very conservative Brit is the owner. Maybe Rupert Murdoch (I know... he's an Aussie by birth) or one of his clones. Someone, please enlighten us, so that we can put some context to why this news source is so blatantly British.

    May 01st, 2013 - 02:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Conqueror

    @14 Why don't you try a different tack? As the site is so “blatantly” British, why do you bother to come here? Don't you have a site that is “blatantly”, south american, latin american, argie that you can go to? After all, we Brits are notoriously bad linguists. We believe that anyone intelligent and educated should be capable of speaking (writing/typing/understanding) English. On that other site, you can develop all your paranoid theories without interference from proper “people” with intelligence and education. Then you can present your theories before the bar of world opinion and watch the worlds laugh itself sick. No, wait, I have a better thought. I'm British. I live in Britain. Don't you think I should easily be able to contact the British proprietor? Or his/her editorial team? But I can't. They don't respond. Could it be that MercoPress is a straightforward news agency. That it only publishes negative articles about argieland because argieland is negative. Broke. In debt. Failing. Dying. What a horrific thought. To a Kirchnerist. Kirchnerists don't mind that CFK has made millions (dollars not pesos). Kirchnerists don't mind that CFK is a dictator. She's “their” dictator. For now. Here's an ancient thought. “Read the message. Don't blame the messenger.” Don't concern yourself with we Brits. In order to “win”, all we have to do is tell the “truth” about you. The “truth” that your “government” (dictatorship) won't tell you. How many bits of “truth” would you like?
    1. Your two “Conquests of the Desert” were war crimes and genocidal.
    2. Your “Dirty War” was a war crime.
    3. Your invasion of the Falkland Islands was a war crime.
    4. Your occupation of the Falkland Islands was a war crime.
    5. Various actions against the Falkland Islanders were war crimes.
    6. The murder of 3 Falkland Islander civilians was a war crime.
    7. The murder of 255 British service personnel was a war crime.
    8. The wounding of 775 British service personnel was a war crime.

    May 01st, 2013 - 04:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Zethee

    “would guess a very conservative Brit is the owner.”

    It is owned and ran by a company in Montevideo, Uruguay. The owners are clever and have noticed that by focusing on the friction between the UK and Argentina they get lots of people visit there website. This in turn makes them money.

    May 01st, 2013 - 06:06 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Britworker

    I can see the parallels between the situation in Gibraltar and the The Falklands, but when the South Atlantic News Agency is running stories on British wind farms, I do have to question 'WHY'?

    May 01st, 2013 - 07:36 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • rylang23

    Thank you, Britworker, for not just joining your compatriots, but for “thinking” about what you are seeing. It would be quite funny if Zethee is correct. Maybe we are all getting our chains pulled by that group. But, still, why all of the articles about Gibraltar? Just because of the connection to the former British Empire. And that wind farm? What's that about? Maybe the Uruguayo owners have targeted Brits because they are easier to fleece. As Zethee points out, it's how they make their money.

    May 01st, 2013 - 09:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Stevie

    rylang23
    Give me a temporary e-mail adress and I will mail you all the info you are looking for.
    I wont post it here because the truth makes people all upset...

    May 02nd, 2013 - 10:30 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
  • rylang23

    rylang23@gmail.com

    May 03rd, 2013 - 12:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0
  • Stevie

    You got mail.

    May 03rd, 2013 - 05:56 am - Link - Report abuse 0

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