The Folly Of Our Age

Wind turbines.

Individually elegant, to be sure, but when deployed en masse they are visual pollution, blighting many landscapes throughout Scotland (and no doubt, the rest of the UK).

Even though they seem to be marching across most of our most scenic hillsides, the amount of energy they generate is miniscule compared to our national needs. Britain is at its coldest with a winter low pressure centred on our country. And what happens then? Oh yes, the wind doesn't blow...

Now research suggests that our conventional power stations are running at less than peak efficiency, to deal with the variations in power levels delivered by wind farms. And that the amount of energy lost to this inefficiency may be greater than the amount of energy provided by the turbines.

Yet the government continues to subsidise their construction. Why? Because it makes it look as if the politicans are doing something about the looming energy crisi, without actually having to make the unpopular - but inescapable - decision to commission new nuclear power plants.

You can hardly blame the companies that construct these monstrosities; the government is throwing huge amounts of our money into their construction. But I still believe them to be The Folly Of Our Age