Sadly I cannot be there but good luck to all that are

I'd love to see a 31ft double decker! Unfortunately they're only about 15ft high, so quite how they've come up with an average of twice this, I don't know. Are these turbines actually going to be 410ft or is that a massive exaggeration too?

About the size of a lot of the things nowadays yes.

The worst thing is not mentioned : the road network. Can I say a big thank you to all you outdoor writers who for decades have done down the Monadhliath. You have helped form an environment where this range is considered unvalued and fair game for these gits.

It looks like they got confused between length and height. Apparently a standard london double decker is about 31ft long.

Every single person who will post a comment on this subject are demonstrating freedom of speech and rightly so. But everyone is also using the product of the much dammed wind turbines; you can’t have your cake and eat it. You are all demonstrating the need for the turbines yet they are dismissed as source of power.
One of the many publically perceived issues with turbines (not the aesthetics) is the shear cost of the capital investment. The project being built offshore on the coast of North Wales only gained consent if the owners paid the local communities £764,000 every year for the length of the project, over a 25 year period that’s £19,100,000. For what, people complained they spoiled the view, what view it’s a horizontal line where the sea meets the sky
Come on people, you want/need renewable power, stop complaining about them it costs millions. Why can’t you accept that renewable power is a necessity and they don’t ruin the landscape if anything they give you something else to look at? The hills have been there for millions of years, after the 25 year lease the turbines will be removed and the glorious hills will remain.

I agree that renewable power is a must but can we have a source of power that harnesses the meteorologic conditions of Scotland at all times? Wind turbines which have to be turned off when it's too windy? We invented the steam engine, surely we can come up with something more efficient which doesn't desecrate our great country. The Beauly-Denny power line will be an eyesore and the fact that Sweden is able to run most of its electricity through underground cables shows how archaic our thinking is at times.

Jenno.

The wind industry is the one who has their cake and eats it:

1. they claim onshore wind is cost sompetitive with gas and nuclear (it is not, levelised costings fail to include subsidies, backup and Grid costs) while at the same time howling with outrage when their huge subsidies are threatened (£300,000 per turbine per year for an average turbine on a site with a 30% load factor).

2. Wind is a parallel system of generation. If you read what National Grid says ('Seven Year Statements' and 'winter forecast' reports for past years) you will see that wind has frequently failed to deliver any significant amount of power during periods of peak load.

So we still have to build all those nasty nuclear (8) and gas-fuelled (36GW) power stations.

There is also a problem with conventional generators who are reluctant to build all that new gas-fuelled capacity that NG says we need. Many of these would be relegated to being inefficiently and damagingly cycled to follow wind load (emitting much more CO2 in the process).

It seems very likely, according to Centrica, that gas operators will be holding out for massive subsidies too. Lose, lose all round.

There is absolutely no 'necessity' to build wind tubines that, on the evidence of real world studies of carbon emissions from power generation in Texas and Ireland, save hardly any CO2.

Why are our extortionate electricity bills being used to subsidise multinational big business, and millionaire landowners to trash the finest landscapes in Western Europe?
What sort of green policy actually destroys the enviromnment it is supposed to be protecting?
Lets have renewables that are predictable, reliable and actually deliver constant power!

George, if your dream of renewables were possible we wouldn't have any other form of power generation. But we don’t so we have to make the best of the technology we have. We all have one thing in common, we all love the hills, if the scientists are right and we keep pumping CO2 into the air, the weather is going to become too volatile for us to enjoy them anyway. Turbines are a weapon in our arsenal that is helping to combat global warming. No one technology is going to fix the climate issue but every bit helps.
These things are temporary; they will be removed at the end of there working life but there is a clear benefit, they make great navigational aids!

Why is everybody so negative, the only points that ever get posted are negative ones?
This is the technology we have and you are all suggesting we do nothing because they are unsightly, well forgive me I haven’t ever seen pretty nuclear or gas fired power station.
If we do nothing and we still have to reduce the CO2 emissions we will have to stop driving our cars and maybe even limit the power generation from the gas fired power stations causing regular blackouts, without power how are you all going write your emails of complaint.
I once saw a documentary about an underwater turbine that could capture the power from the tides, which you can set your clock to it. So this form of technology should agree with everybody, you can’t see them because they are underwater; you have power production you can schedule so you would think that is the answer. WRONG, somebody has petitioned the government because they might scare off the whales!!!!!!
So it doesn’t really matter what technology is used because there will always be opposition, maybe we should just ignore it, take the heavy fines and let the weather and the planet spiral into oblivion because you are all obviously experts in the field.

@ Jenno

The reason most people are against wind farms is nothing to do with having our cake and eating it, but because they are proven to be expensive (even with massive subsidies), provide unreliable continuity, are ineffectual in their contribution to the NG, and - quite clearly - not the answer.

If you plaster onshore wind farms everywhere, you will only make the most microscopic contribution to the NG, and we will STILL HAVE TO HAVE NUCLEAR AND GAS powerstations anyway.

These powerstations will be ugly - you can't get away from that - but they will most likely be in less beautiful and environmentally sensitive areas, AND there will be far fewer of them. (As I understand it it would take a wind farm covering an area the size of Greater London to replace just ONE nuclear station).

Also, proper "environmentalists" (not those groups with a vested interest or particular stance on the matter or their own, narrow agenda) would NEVER condone the ruin of the countryside.

And to make the point that you would prefer these simply so that it might rain or blow a bit less when YOU are out on the hills, well I'm tempted to say that is an extremely selfish concern!

Jules, I completely agree with all your points relating to high costs and inability to compare to main stream power stations. But we have to reduce CO2 and have to be seen to reduce it for the agreements we as a country have signed up to. So what do you suggest? All renewable energy generation is expensive; people complain when they are stuck on the hills and now complain when there out to sea. With respect to the hills, they have been there for millions of years and will remain for millions more, a 25 year lease after which the turbines will be removed isn’t even a blip in the timeline.
My reference to the weather conditions was just flippant remark, global warming however is a serious issue and cannot be ignored. So I challenge you, based on the points you have made, what is the solution? If you were tasked to reduce CO2 with a substantial budget what would you do?

@ Jenno

Well, as we will have to have the other technologies anyway, I would suggest further investment and concentration on these. Nuclear is pretty low carbon, and newer gas-fired stations are substantially lower in CO2 output than current carbon based technologies used in the UK.

Reducing consumption via more efficient energy use and promoting less "power-greedy" appliances would help. Subsidies would likely assist the swift introduction of these further, and some of the massive subsidy budget could be directed thus.

However, in the grand scheme of things the amount of CO2 the UK emits on a world scale is quite small. Far better to tackle some of the issues surrounding the major world CO2 produces such as the USA, India and China. Investment here would likely be more effective.