I HAVE to admit the latest letter from Vian Roberts, Saundersfoot, (Western Telegraph, October 16) left me somewhat bemused with his views on sensitivity - could it be he interprets criticism and truth in this way?

But yet again his letter is full of gullible and incorrect claims.

His opinion that the August power outage was due to lightning and is now a matter of public record (whatever that means) is very naive – the grid is protected against most lightning strikes (otherwise the grid would experience lots of problems).

There is an earth conductor (shield wire) running along the top of pylon routes – this allows a lightning strike to be grounded via the metal pylon. It should be noted though that it can prove to be very dangerous, if not fatal, to be near the base of a pylon (you do not have to actually touch the pylon) during a significant lightning strike due to what is known as rise-of-earth-potential, which is exacerbated in areas of high ground resistivity.

There are also arcing horns across the suspension insulators to ground any over-voltage scenarios – these arcing horns perform in the same manner as the gap in a petrol engine spark plug. So to claim lightning affected two major generators resulting in a large outage is stretching credibility a bit much - but then perhaps Mr Roberts is privy to much more detailed information and as such I wonder if he will kindly share his power knowledge with readers (don’t hold your breath)?

On another matter I would certainly support David Bellamy, OBE, in recognising the attempt to brainwash the uninformed and gullible to the wonders of wind farms in the same context to that of Smart Meters and how the power companies urge us all to use less electricity.

Regarding birds and bats his defence of the RSPB is risible and he need only visit savetheeaglesinternational.org to recognise what a ‘Silly Billy’ he is being!

Indeed, the website states that, ‘contrary to what you are told, windfarms, will cause the extinction of many bird and bat species’ - slaughter by wind turbines is common knowledge across the globe.

It comes as no surprise that Vian Roberts is tellingly quiet about this important site.

Finally, he should recognise a fundamental truth relating to the effectiveness of wind turbines and the RSPB, which can be aptly summed up by the Latin: non simper ea sunt quae videntur (things are not always what they appear to be).

DAVE HASKELL,

Brithdir