Earlier this week EDF (that big Olympic sponsor, and green flag waver……. 
) announced (it appears), through the Evening Standard, that they’ve decided to walk away from a Wind turbine project to power the Olympic games in 2012.
To most people that may have been interesting but not such a big deal. To anybody close to this issue it’s something altogether different.
The article runs under the headline:
Energy firm EDF abandons 2012 Olympics turbine due to ‘lack of wind’
The article doesn’t quote EDF directly but it confidently says:
“French-owned EDF Energy are not bidding to run the 393ft-tall turbine on the Games site as they were concerned about a lack of wind.
The company, London’s largest electricity supplier, said it would not be able to sell enough wind energy from the 2012 Olympic site into the national grid in future years to justify the turbine’s £2 million start-up costs.
This is an Olympic sized ‘Pork Pie’.
EDF actually failed to win the tender to build a Wind Turbine to power the Olympic games (London 2012) – about one whole year ago…!
Why on earth would they claim now that they’ve decided to walk away – from a project that had walked away from them a whole year ago?
Best guess is that EDF got wind (no pun intended, honestly) that an announcement on this project is imminent, and it looked a bit embarrassing for them. London’s largest energy supplier, big games sponsor, (and as we know a very green company… ) can’t win a single turbine contract to power the Games, on their home turf… Yep I can see how that might look.
To me, this story (in the ES) is damage limitation, a cynical attempt to get ‘a version’ out first – only trouble is this ‘version’ is fake, it’s a lie.
Did EDF plant this story or did the Evening Standard forget ‘journalistic standards’ (like having a credible source…) in their rush for a story. I know where my money goes…
It’s a bit worrying though when the company that owns the UK’s nuclear industry appears to play so fast and loose with the truth. It’s not like the nuclear industry has a big reputation for honesty (on safety issues) already.
Olympic Pork Pies are one thing, but……
Cheers.
lol, I like the pie, very fitting.
Looks like a spoiler to me… they didn’t get the contract, so they planted a story to undermine the technology and reduce media traction (no-longer news). If the story opens up again, they’ll push nuclear as the future etc etc
SO much more behind this story……… I am aware of a number of manufacturers who have been approached and have declined putting this turbine in. Someone at the olympic committee thought it would be nice to have a big turbine to reinforce the “greenness” of the 2012 olympics.
I was involved with one of those who walked away and it makes no sense on SO many levels. Wind regime for one is not good enough, the proposal is right on top of accomodation buildings and right next to rail lines – so the health and safety aspect is also a huge turn off. I am surprised that EDF had their arms twisted to go public on looking at this – the others looked, said no and walked away and kept out of the media.
Hi Windymiller – you’re right there is a lot more to the story than this.
But there’s no way EDF were pressured into going public on this. They failed to win the tender (having tried) 12 months ago, this announcement makes no sense other than as face saving news manipulation.
Cheers.
It seems like a continuation of bad journalism towards eco-agendas not giving the full details of this non-event.
One can argue about the implications of EDF’s wind turbine in the media (and the lack of anyone else’s for that matter), but if the Olympic committee really want to go green then there is an awful lots of other things they should be doing, not just high impact million pound structures.
just got a google alert about this….
oops-a-daisy EDF!
http://www.nce.co.uk/major-projects/london-2012-olympics/olympic-park-turbine-was-not-in-doubt-says-oda/5214037.article