A little black duck living in Carmarthen Bay will be quackers with fear over the Government’s energy White Paper. Although, the Cabinet wisely refused to commit itself yesterday to the much-hyped target of generating a fifth of our energy by 2020 from so-called “renewables”, like waves and wind, it still presented a vision of our little island covered by giant wind-farms. But, the unpalatable truth about most “renewables” is that they are no more “green” than coal, oil, gas, or nuclear, which at least have the merit of working.

The bird in question is the common scoter, our only all-black male duck, of which there are just 200 pairs in Britain. Research has raised the spectre of this little fellow, along with the red-throated diver and the common eider, being carved up by the whirring blades of wind turbines. One recent study of flight altitudes concluded that there are “potentially adverse effects on birds from construction of proposed offshore wind farms”.

With respect to “renewable” technologies, there is an unacceptable double-standard. If a company tries to erect a mobile telephone mast, the green brigade will be up in arms about the need for long-term research into its dangers; not so with wind farms. And this is despite the fact that there is hardly any research into their impact on wildlife, especially on threatened birds. Moreover, although birds hear at 1/200th of a second in comparison to our own 1/20th, there is again virtually no research into the audio impact of these thudding giants. The same paucity of research applies to tidal and wave-energy schemes, which can disrupt estuarine, coastal and oceanic ecosystems.

Most “renewables” also have other downsides which are conveniently ignored. Wind farms and photovoltaics (solar cells), for example, take a considerable time to generate a return on the energy expended in their construction. Both are spasmodic in production and are difficult to incorporate into a national grid without a supplementary back-up from fossil fuels. Moreover, the infrastructure is as unsightly as telephone masts.

Likewise, geothermal energy projects put sensitive habitats at risk, and there are only a few places — such as in Iceland — where sufficient geothermal energy to generate electricity is within drilling distance. Large-scale hydroelectric capacity is saturated; small-scale systems suffer from intermittent production and are easily blocked by debris.

Finally, don’t get too excited about the hydrogen Utopia hyped by green gurus: the hydrogen fuel cell was invented in 1839, at least 20 years before the first practical internal combustion engine, and it has still not made the grade. Moreover, hydrogen is just a carrier of energy and requires a large amount of energy to extract it from water or other sources.

Three facts should put over-optimism about “renewables” firmly in its place. First, energy demands are going to increase, especially, and rightly so, only in the developing world. Secondly, fossil fuels currently generate about 10 terawatts worldwide, more than three quarters of energy production, and there is but a snowflake-in-hell’s chance of “renewables” generating even a fraction of this. Lastly, as in Denmark, “renewables” raise the cost of energy, thus hitting everybody in the pocket, including the poor and the old.

And what is it all for? It is for a misguided idea that controlling fossil fuel emissions, just a small number of factors out of the millions that govern climate, will result in a predictable outcome. This notion has morphed into one of the most dangerous myths of the age because it undermines the fundamental fact that all forms of energy production have environmental downsides, such as the fate of the little black duck.

The author is Professor Emeritus of Biogeography in the University of London.