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Written by Mark Seall, published on August 11th, 2008 in Eco-Wordly
Surrounded by water, with strong winds blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean, Great Britain is a blustery place. There's nothing quite like an invigorating walk along the cliff-tops to blow away the cobwebs.
I was reminded of this on a recent Sunday afternoon visit to the Portland Bill lighthouse on the South coast of England (pictured), since despite the brilliant sunshine one needed a concerted effort to walk headlong into the howling wind. Talking above the constant noise of wind and sea was almost impossible, and local people tell me this is by no means unusual here.
Yet despite being a desolate place with enough wind energy blowing through every day to provide a significant portion of local energy needs, you won't find a single wind turbine at Portland today. Nor anywhere else along the windy Dorset coast for that matter.
Despite British government commitments to generate 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, proposals for wind turbine installations tend to run aground pretty quickly once local opposition is voiced. "Inefficient, Wasteful and Wrong Headed" shouts one local magazine article. "Money over common sense" states Dorset Against Rural Turbines, along with pictures of dead birds and videos of exploding windmills.
Two thirds of the UK Government's climate change targets have been missed, and it's renewable energy targets look set to join that list. People want digital TV recorders, plug-in hybrid vehicles, wide-screen TV's and a multitude of other devices which contribute towards increasing energy demands. Unfortunately they don't want nuclear power, dirty coal fired power stations, wind turbines, off-shore tidal barrages, or any other form of energy production - unless it is situated somewhere else.
Protestors often like to point out that each individual wind farm will have an insignificant impact on energy production and CO2 reductions. Sadly, this is an often used argument in environmental discussions - cars only contribute to 6% of Britain's CO2 output, so let's leave those alone, aviation only 8%, so let's forget that, and so on and so forth.
No Magic Solution
Unfortunately, there will be no magic solution to clean energy. Just as CO2 emissions will ultimately need to be reduced from every source, so will every form of clean energy be required to meet our increasing needs. This means that everybody has a role to play, and many people will need to accept renewable energy as a fact of life.
Wind farms in places such as Portland Bill are inevitable, but what's avoidable are the lost opportunities. Countries such as Denmark and Germany have embraced wind power, producing significant quantities of electricity by wind (almost 20% of the total requirement in Denmark's case) and have become world leaders in wind power technology and manufacturing.
Meanwhile, Britain will continue to argue, and the wind will continue to blow.
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Fossil Fuel
