Feb 25, 2013 Thousands of Britain’s onshore wind farms will
create more greenhouse gases than they save because many of them
are built on peatland, a new study claims. The finding was made
by Scottish government-funded researchers from the University of
Aberdeen, who devised a method used by developers to calculate
how long it takes for wind farms to ‘repay’carbon savings into
the environment, the Daily Telegraph reports. Onshore wind farms
are often built on upland sites where peat soil is common. Peat
is a massive store of carbon and is described by scientists as
Europe’s equivalent to the tropical rainforest. Peat bogs absorb
carbon in the same way as plants and trees but in much higher
quantities. UK peatland stores about at least 3.2 billion tons
of carbon, making it one of the most important carbon sinks in
Europe. But in Scotland alone two thirds of all onshore wind
farms are planned to be situated on peatland, while England and
Wales also have a large number of current and planned wind farms
on peat b