I like windfarms

I have been reading some blogs and comments about people protesting the building of wind-farms near their homes and villages in South Wales. Personally, I don't understand the fuss and the furore about wind-farms. Why don't people like them? Ok, so that is why I was reading these commentaries but I am still none the wiser, the arguments don't make much sense to me. They spoil the view, apparently. Well, maybe but no more than pylons do already surely? And no more than the view will be spoiled when climate change floods the plains and food security goes down the toilet and millions starve. Somehow I think in that nightmare scenario very few people will stop to enjoy the view.

But, climate skeptic or not, I cannot help but disagree with the aesthetic problem people have regarding wind-farms. And it seems I am not alone. An offshore wind-farm in Ulster is something of a tourist attraction in its own right. On clear days folk congregate in a coffee shop on the shore and enjoy the view, or so I am told by a local resident I know personally. They might be lying and in the pocket of the evil green energy corporations. I know Donald Trump hates them. After being a little too cosy for my liking with the SNP for years he has had a massive falling out with Alex Salmond over a proposed offshore wind-farm next to his half built golf course. I know the Scots invented the game but really, Aberdeenshire seems like the worst location for outdoor pursuits of any kind. Particularly because it is a bit windswept at times. Ideal for a wind-farm really you might think?

Let us not cover the globe in them, I think a nice mix of Tidal (I note Swansea might be building its own Tidal Lagoon soon which is very cool, click the link above to see what it will look like. Perhaps a tourist destination in its own right too? Solar power where appropriate and whatever else the brightest and best minds of the world dream up in the future. I have no problem with nuclear either by the way, but that is for a separate blog post I suspect.

I think a clean, cheap, renewable source of energy that does not leave us at the mercy of OPEC, Gazprom or whatever is fairly sensible and they have to be in someone's back yard! And, that backyard usually gets a nice amount of money in grants to improve the community too. Many of the new wind-farms are being built in the Welsh Valleys and, fair play they are beautiful, but these are depressed communities following the collapse of the coal mining industry (another blog post in itself) and a bit of inward investment seems like a good idea and fitting that these regions still produce the energy for the nation?

So, yes. If you wanted to build one in my back yard, or near my home, or in my local beauty spot you would hear no complaint from me. Like the mobile phone mast protests of the 90s I think that we will seriously regret making such a fuss in the future. Plus, they look pretty! Serene! Graceful!

Anti-Mast Protests

Today's announcement by the government to tackle mobile blackspots got me wondering about the phone mast protests of the last decade. Remember them? Plucky little neighbourhood groups set up, and supported by the usual suspects on the left, to fight the good fight against those evil corporations and their phone masts! Concerned about cancer and their children (always the children, the modern equivalent of the Belgian nun circa 1914) they fought bitterly but have since vanished.

A google search of mobile mast protests shows that there are indeed still some protests rumbling away but it is a far cry from their peak in the late nineties early naughties when they were the ubiquitous form of protest despite the many good reasons for protesting around the same time.

Could it be that now that 92% of adults in the UK own and use a mobile phone that suddenly we have had a Paulian moment and seen the error in our ways? That 92% of the UK population is, almost as we speak, clutching a little black brick in their hands and shaking it violently trying to get that Youtube video to load makes the days when we were worried that phones caused cancer seem a distant memory. But there are still areas of Britain where folk have to shake their phone in order to get the text message to send, bless...presumably those areas where mobile mast protesters were successful, although I can't verify that, and areas like the Welsh Valleys and Scottish Highlands were people are not considered important enough in which to invest. So, thankfully we have this new government initiative to right this wrong, and to undo the 'good' done by busybodies standing in the way of progress.

Still, it makes me wonder. When the windfarm is undoubtedly the mobile mast of this decade...when, in the not so distant future, we sincerely wish that we had actually built more of the buggers will we have the opportunity to rectify the folly? I highly doubt that.