BBC Ignores Damning Report on Windpower

BBC bias works in many ways. Often it's as important to look at what is not said as it is to look at the surface of what they is said. A prime example is the report by the think tank Civitas on wind power. Authored by economist Ruth Lea, the report 'Electricity Costs: The folly of wind-power', is frankly scathing. While it's not news to those who follow climate politics, it is blunt in its assessment of windpower, finding that that there is no economic case for wind, that it does little to reduce CO2. The headline conclusion is:

Wind-power is therefore expensive and ineffective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity and/or cutting emissions. The renewables targets should be renegotiated with the EU.

Not surprisingly the story has been picked up in many parts of the mainstream media, as well as the sceptical blogosphere.

What about the BBC? Which is the broadcast arm of the British windpower industry? No sign of it on the website. No mention on the environment pages. No blogs that I can see. OK, so I try the search function on the website. Searching on 'civitas' shows up plenty of hits. The BBC have reported on many of the previous reports produced by the think tank, and have turned to it for comments on other occasions. Doing a search on 'windfarm' brings up a huge number of hits, including a just-published story: 'Daviot Wind Farm near Inverness to 'benefit' education'. It's a typical puff piece for the wind industry, with no real content and no challenge to the alleged benefits of this particular windfarm.

So we have a major report on wind power being reported elsewhere (Daily Mail, Guardian, Telegraph etc), but not a word from our state broadcaster.

Perhaps the BBC are just being a bit slow. But perhaps they'll prefer to set the agenda by ignoring an inconvenient report that helps burst the bubble that is windpower.