- I love lonely and remote places. Wind turbines desecrate them.
- Their contribution to our energy demand is unreliable and, even on a windy day, trivial.
- They consume massive subsidies, money which could be better spent elsewhere.
- The industry is dominated by energy giants who, like 'barn-fresh eggs', portray themselves as small, cuddly and eco-friendly but are as grasping and morality-free as Big Pharma or the arms industry.
- They are the visible symbols of a religion, one I can't share, and religions give me the creeps.
Soon there won't be any remote places left.
Simon Jenkins puts it so well in this article. Who would have thought I would be linking to a Guardian writer in this blog? A brief taster:
The wind debate is no less dominated by a mix of politics and commerce. Turbine parks require excavating carbon sinks, concreting them and making and installing turbines and pylons, usually to distribute small, even trivial, amounts of intermittent electricity. Yet the argument is now symbolic.
Sacrificing the Lake District, the Golden Valley, the Scottish islands, even the Wiltshire vales is like Aztecs killing virgins, evidence of the machismo of power in a godly cause. This is enhanced by a rerun of town/country antagonism, with metropolitan journalists shouting nimby at their country cousins (there being no danger of a power station on Hyde Park or Clapham Common).
Good stuff. I may well return to this topic.
Wind turbines certainly desecrate the land, but so do mountaintop-removal coal mines, natural gas wells, and oil derricks on land and sea. Large solar farms are lower profile, but far from benign.
ReplyDeleteThe only renewable energy that really appeals to me is small wind turbines for off-grid living, and solar panels on every possible (already built) surface. The latter seems to hold the most promise.
But the ultimate problem is that the economy & population have grown too large to be sustained without constantly cannibalizing nature. We're a species out of control.
The whole meaning of the word "growth" has been hijacked and distorted in the name of fiat money (debt-based currency). Mass-depletion of finite resources, scenic views and quality of life is what most "growth" has become.
"Wind turbines certainly desecrate the land, but so do mountaintop-removal coal mines, natural gas wells, and oil derricks on land and sea. Large solar farms are lower profile, but far from benign."
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't disagree with you there, and I am certainly not arguing for any of those alternatives. I'd say small-scale solar and wind for domestic supply (and I am all in favour of the off-grid approach) and nuclear for large-scale generation. If there are problems with nuclear, let's work to solve them, not run away like frightened children.
I'd agree with you on growth and population too, except that the solutions to that particular problem tend to be more frightening than the problem itself. Fascist world government? Nein, danke.