Daily Telegraph Letters: Wind and snow

Both Shell and BP employ significant engineering and planning resources to determine viable business opportunities for their companies. So the withdrawal of Shell from the Thames Estuary wind farm project and BP’s stated lack of interest in wind turbines strongly endorse Christopher Booker’s assertions (May 4) that wind turbines are not an economic or reliable way to produce electricity.

Bruce Tait, Hythe, Kent

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/11/nosplit/dt1101.xml

Oil prices threaten to hit $200 a barrel in a final “super-spike” over coming months as producers fail to keep pace with blistering demand from China and the Middle East, according to a controversial report by Goldman Sachs.

Militants in Nigeria attacked Royal Dutch Shell facilities in southern Delta over the weekend, leading to another cut in output.

Shell’s oil production has been falling for six years, BP’s seems to have peaked 2005, and this week even the mighty Exxon was forced to admit its output dropped 10% in the first quarter of the year.

You asked if other people using Royal Dutch Shell B’s nominee account were experiencing the same problems. Shareview Dealing, Equiniti’s online service, said it was not aware of anyone else.

Royal Dutch Shell’s shock decision to withdraw from the London Array wind farm may have wasted plenty of time and money, but it has certainly dealt a significant blow to the UK’s ambitions to meet emissions reduction targets. To have united the diverse interests of the Government, energy firms and the green lobby, is no small feat. But Shell achieved that yesterday.