The Duke of Edinburgh has always seemed to me like a common sense, decent sort of chap. So I was heartened, though not surprised, to hear that he recently described wind farms as “absolutely useless, completely reliant on subsidies and an absolute disgrace.” Yep, that pretty much sums them up.
 
According to the UK Telegraph;

The Duke’s attack on the turbines, believed to be the first public insight into his views on the matter, came in a conversation with the managing director of a leading wind farm company.
 
When Esbjorn Wilmar, of Infinergy, which builds and operates turbines, introduced himself to the Duke at a reception in London, he found himself on the end of an outspoken attack on his industry…
 
…“He said, ‘You don’t believe in fairy tales do you?’” said Mr Wilmar. “He said that they would never work as they need back-up capacity.”

 
Correct. And when they’re shut down, due to high winds of all things, the taxpayers not only don’t have energy – they get to compensate the wind farms! As the UK Sun reported in October;

National Grid paid out almost £3 million to wind farm operators in compensation in mid-September when a dozen wind farms were shut for three nights in a row.

 
Prince Philip isn’t alone in voicing his sentiments about this fruitless venture: Ex-chancellor backs Philip over attack on wind farms which Duke described as ‘absolutely useless’ (source: africangrio) ~
 
This past Sunday, Lord Lawson, a former Tory Chancellor and leading climate change skeptic, said:

‘[The Duke] is spot on. He rightly feels strongly about the issue and equally clearly knows what he is talking about.
 
‘If you tried to devise the most costly and inefficient means of generating electricity imaginable, you would choose wind power – which is also an environmental monstrosity, desecrating ever more of our English landscape…”

 
Not to mention reducing local avian populations: Wind Power; Bane of Birds.
 
The Telegraph also reported that the Crown makes millions from leasing their lands to wind farms;

The seabed off Britain’s 7,700-mile coastline is almost entirely owned by the Crown Estate, the Queen’s £7billion land and property portfolio – which leases it to developers to build massive offshore turbines.

 
OK. But doesn’t that only serve to add more credibility to the Duke’s position?
 
Even the Met Office, the National Weather Service for the UK, is having a tough time making the case for wind, posting the following on their website last June:

Weather patterns, and crucially wind speeds, underpin the success for this type renewable energy. The severe gales experienced in Scotland last month coupled with the generally lower than average wind speeds experienced over the last year demonstrate the challenges of wind as a renewable energy resource.

Maybe it finally takes a Duke to declare that the Emperor has no clothes.
 
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With apologies to Ogden Nash:

 
I think that I shall never see,
A wind turbine lovely as a tree;
Perhaps, unless the turbines fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

 
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Related: Duking It Out With Foreign Investors at Watts Up With That?