Windfarms...

The appearance of the first turbines off Colwyn Bay was bound to ignite all sorts of controversy (see our 'quote of the week') but what we find particularly interesting is the nature of the public debate about them.

Those who oppose windfarms in this area do so out of a belief that they will damage the visual aspect of the area and, one assumes, erode the tourist-based economy by deterring visitors. But we wonder if they've really thought that through...

The view from Llandudno and Colwyn Bay is rather uninteresting. Of course, the visitors all love the open expanse of water, which is almost certainly an improvement on the city from which they've come (else why would they come at all?) but it is simply an open expanse of water, with very little of interest in it. No mountains to give it scale, no islands (we've often thought that dumping a few million tons of rock and earth in Llandudno or Colwyn's bays would make a fantastic addition to the tourist amenities; the West coast of Scotland certainly does okay), few ships and only the odd gas flaring rig to provide any point of interest whatsoever. The turbines might actually provide something to look at....

But on another point, is the membership of organisations like SOS all going to forego the use of their computers, electric blankets, TVs, 'fridges' freezers and washing machines? It seems doubtful, in which case the obvious question is where is the power going to come from? As our diminishing nuclear capacity and our eroded coal stocks eventually disappear, what will replace them? No matter what one says about the French (and who doesn't?) they had the foresight many years ago to build a nuclear capacity that now frees them from dependence on any other national power. We're importing oil and gas...and coal.