No Newsnight, I really DO want a wind turbine in my back yard

[VulpusinaWilfsuit]

FGS. Fecking NIMBY nonsense.

I would happily have on in my garden. Especially if it provided me with free electricity.

France has the right idea. The govt just has to TELL people to put em up. And get over it. Wot Ed Miliband said: the bigger threat is climate change.

I can't bear all this conservative nonsense about protecting some Victorian notion of the British countryside as if it weren't all shaped by human cultures and capitalism anyway.

Bah.

Me too. I'd have one on my garage roof. I think they are beautiful and such a stirring site when you come across a flock of them on some hillside. Tis strange how we have just accepted pylons striding across the fields but not turbines.

I know what you mean, OrmIrian - both my boys are very keen on windmills but don't seem to notice pylons.

Even so, it's a subjective judgment so I can see how it won't wash with the Nimby brigade. But from a practical point of view there are very few solutions to the energy crisis that won't have cause disruption to the landscape - solar farms, nuclear plant, even tidal barrages all look pretty odd plonked down in the middle of a wild landscape.

I can't understand those who objct either.Look at the big pictur you won't be around forever 80 yrs max probably but your kids and theirs etc etc will and it is about finding new energy sources and saving the planet.

I'd have one too, gladly.

We went on hols recently to Prince Edward Island and the North Cape is dedicated to a research area for wind farms. There is a small museum there explaining it, and differing heights and sizes of windmill are trialled.

some info here

We then drove to the other side of the island, the east cape, and more wind farms there. I love them. DH the engineer loves them too, although he prefers nuclear.

There is legitimate concern about industrialising beautiful, remote countryside, I think.

There is indeed edam. And it isn't as simple as 'all turbines are good'. But there are such potential benefits to wind power that it might mean we need to kill a few sacred cows - in a way we shouldn't be for other types of developments.

Pylons are everywhere and aren't very attractive but did we ever get any say in that?

Interesting site, particularly the last point about noise. www.bwea.com/energy/myths.html

I think wind turbines are beautiful too, very calming.

Well, it's a fair point, Edam, but even if we could constrain demand for energy to its current level, in the UK we will loose 25% of our generating capacity over the next 6 years, due to EU commitments and old plant coming off line.

Now I'm not saying that wind is, on its own, a solution to that problem - it isn't. But new plant will need to be built and more investment in the transmission and distribution grid is urgently needed. It seems unlikely that we can accommodate all of this in previously industrial landscapes, so I think we need to decide, as a society, what degree lightweight industrialisation is appropriate vs the highly concentrated development necessary for plants such as nuclear or convential power plants with carbon capture.

And it's clear we need to make our minds up soon...we're really running out of time.

I want one (a small on as my garden's titchy), some solar pannels aswell.

i like them too: although I wish they'd invent one that didn't need to use power to start it in the first place.

i would really love to live in a proper windmill, and grind my own flour (that's not actually off-topic: i'm sure lots more peopel would love wind turbines if they looked more like windmills)

Ummm, Nickelbabe....you've got a wind turbine that needs power to get it started?

Sorry love, that's not a wind turbine, that's a fan

I agreee Vulpusina.

I think they are beautiful and would happily have a whole field of them outside my house.

Beautiful.

No, I like the sleek modern wind turbines more than old fashioned windmills actually

Cumbria is going for wind turbines in a big way I think, regional development agency and councils are branding it 'the energy coast'. Don't know if Sellafield is due to be decommissioned, maybe they want a new nuclear power station too, or are trying to replace jobs that will be lost when it goes?

Not too popular with some locals, because the first thing they knew about one proposed development was lots of men turning up with equipment saying 'we can't tell you who we are or what we are doing'.

It's all so bloody complicated - the Severn barrier thingy would apparently generate loads of power (they claim) but equally carries real risks of affecting the environment and ecosystem.

And the nuclear power lobby see climate change as a great opportunity, even though the carbon cost of all that building would be massive - it'd be too late to worry about climate change by the time any power stations actually came online.

I love wind turbines, we drive through Spain regularly and they have loads of them on the hills, they look lovely. People round this bit of England don't seem to want them judging by all the posters saying so.

I know people with a huge wind turbine in their garden. They're a complete con. Yes, you get "free" electricity, but it is going to take them over 20 years (far longer than they were told) to get back the huge investment cost of installation. If the UK took the same approach as Germany and put a high value on wind energy sold back to the grid from homes, it might be worthwhile financially.

The whole thing was a shambles from start to finish with them. On advice from the turbine people they even converted all their oil fired heating to electric and now they can't even have all the rads on at the same time because it overloads the main fuse. They'd have to change to industrial wiring to fix it. A complete joke and waste of money for them, particularly as they're recently retired.

I would go as far as to say they have been mis-sold the investment.

We have a water turbine but I would have a wind one if I could.

And I would lie down in front of the bulldozers if they wanted to build a nuclear plant anywhere near me!