Science Story

05 July 2009 01:49 BST

Climate change head for more wind turbines in public areas

The prime minister's adviser on climate change has called for the building of wind turbines outside schools and near motorways in order to promote sustainable energy.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Lord Turner said it was likely that the country would have to compromise on the visual intrusion usually associated with towers producing wind energy and increase efforts to deal with climate change.

He told the paper that at present people were not being "imaginative enough" with regards to the location of windmills on brownfield sites and called for practical solutions to place the energy-generating devices near schools and motorways.

"If the wind dynamics work, why couldn't you put turbines every 300 yards up the central reservation of the motorway - where you have already produced a visual intrusion already? And what about old industrial sites, ports and so on?" he said.

"I suspect we can get more wind, in addition to that, from intermediate-sized wind turbines rather than the great big ones. The 15- to 50-kilowatt ones on top of a pole but not a mega pole. The sort you put outside a hospital, a factory park or outside every school."

The head of the government's committee on climate change also warned that sterner action may be needed to deal with the threat of global warming.

The former CBI director said that studies were showing that the amount of cuts were likely to be revised upwards rather than downwards in order to err on the side of caution.

"It is going to require some hard decisions and people will have to accept tradeoffs they don't want," he said.

Lord Turner is tasked with reviewing whether the UK's target to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050 is being met and to see whether targets to cut emissions should be raised to 80 per cent.

The committee headed by him is also expected to report to parliament on efforts to reduce emissions.