RSPB warns of harm from new wind farm – about Hornsea Project Three Offshore Wind Farm given development consent

By Roger Harrabin  BBC environment analyst

The giant Hornsea Three development lies 75 miles away from Flamborough Head, England’s biggest sea bird colony on the Yorkshire coast. The RSPB says kittiwakes will need to fly through the area, dodging turbines, to reach feeding grounds. The developers have promised to compensate for the impact on the birds. They plan to do this by building four bespoke nesting towers to encourage them on land. But the RSPB says it will take a decade to see whether this idea works – and that will be too late because the wind farms will be up and running by then. Click here to read more about the Hornsea consent and the RSPB response.

Dogger Bank’s giant turbines herald a wind of change in UK industry

Guardian: ‘The ambition of the North Sea project promises vast quantities of green energy – and many green jobs   Beyond the horizon off the coast of North Yorkshire, a quiet revolution is emerging from the waves of the North Sea. More than 80 miles from land, hundreds of the world’s most powerful wind turbines have begun reaching into the air as construction progresses on the biggest windfarm ever built. Almost 200 turbines, each almost as tall as the Eiffel tower, will soon rise above the submerged Doggerland to populate an expanse of sea as large as North Yorkshire itself. The Dogger Bank windfarm is an engineering feat that marks a step change in the growth of renewable energy. Each steel structure, weighing 2,800 tonnes, has been designed to soar more than 250 metres from where their heels are buried in the seabed to the top of each 107-metre blade. The staggering scale of the turbines means that each one can generate enough electricity to power 16,000 homes, at less than the average price of electricity in the wholesale energy market. Click here to read more’