Scientists agree placing wind farms on peatland is ‘disastrous’

Building wind turbines on Scotland’s precious peatland could be catastrophic for the environment, according to a Scottish MEP.

Following a seminar given by key scientists at the European Parliament in Brussels, Struan Stevenson, MEP, is calling for action to stop any further building on peatland.

There are 980 wind-farm proposals in place across Europe, of which 187 would be built on peatland. Some are gigantic wind farms, such as that proposed for on Lewis.

“This is a looming catastrophe,” said Mr Stevenson.

Peatland is a natural carbon-storage system and about a sixth of the planet’s total is in Scotland. Professor Joseph Holden, of the University of Leeds, who is a specialist in wetland environments and carbon processes, told the seminar that extensive infrastructure would dry out vast areas of peatland.

When peatland dries out it loses carbon – a process that is irreversible. Mr Stevenson
thinks it is ridiculous to destroy such an important resource, while at the same time there are huge amounts of research are going into creating artificial storage systems for carbon.

“Scotland, despite only having a 60th of the world’s land mass, has one-sixth of the total peat bogs. Peat bogs are Europe’s rainforests,” he said.

“The evidence we heard at the seminar makes it quite clear that by allowing this development we wreck the peat bog and irreversibly destroy its capability of acting as a carbon sink.

“It also releases tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.”

Scotsman