Wind Power: Energy of the Future or a Fantasy?

Offshore turbines could supply electricity for every home in the UK by 2020, it was revealed last week. Bloggers blew hot and cold on the merits of the scheme, at ios.typepad.com

Message Board

Peter

This is just a colossal waste of money and effort on feelgoodery. Even if the problem is correctly diagnosed, which is a big if, this is a way of not doing anything serious about it, but spending enormous sums in the process.

Stephen Bird

Peter’s ‘feelgoodery’ is right. Also the wishful thinking behind the idea that Britain could lead on wind-generated power generation is laughably misplaced. If Britain wants to lead on energy, it could harness the tides.

David Jefferis

Wind power certainly has a place. Denmark already gets 4 per cent of its energy this way. But it’s only part of the solution, and local generation has to be a more efficient answer.

Geomac

This government has once again completely lost the plot on energy. Windmills are far from the answer in themselves. What happens when the wind drops? Do we sit in the dark and shiver?

The Engineer

Geomac, I am an engineer so listen to me. Wind can power England when it blows, and your beloved coal plants can pick up the slack on the rare days when the wind does not blow.

Energetic

There is an old saying: ‘No one ever built a windmill if he could build a watermill.’ The wind is an unreliable source of power. And infrastructure costs on a huge turbine programme will be met from our pockets.

Geomac

To build some 7,000 windmills would require about 11 to be built every week until 2020 – even if they could build for 12 months a year, which is not possible in the North Sea!

Geoff M

While I think there are better ways to build efficient green energy generation, at least it’s a move in the right direction. Massive spending in this area is definitely warranted.

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