I read an interesting article in the Independent recently about European nations joing forces to form a North Sea link of super efficient underwater cables, linking the various forms of renewable energy sources so if the wind stops blowing in the UK, we import energy from our European cousins where the wind IS blowing and vice versa. The same applies to tidal power and solar energy. Interestingly, I read that the Cape Cod offshore windfarm proposal would have turbines that have a lifespan of twenty five years, but the energy produced (by each turbine) within one year of being installed would offset all of the emissions emitted during the construction, transportation of materials and instillation process.

Hi Jay, I think it's called the Super Grid isn't it? I believe the plan is to extend it right into Europe where there's an enormous hydro resource which will act as backup. I think there are even plans to extend it to north Africa where there's a colossal solar resource. All made possible by new high voltage DC technology which has very low losses over distance.

John

Hi JH. Yes that sounds right. I think I read that only 0.3% of the surface area of the Sahara designated to solar power could supply all of Europe's electricity. Having said that, I've always been sceptical about "silver bullets" or "technology" saving the day as put simply, I think as a species we're a plague and living beyond our means, and nature (referring to James Lovelock's Gaia Theory) will teach us a brutal lesson. I agree with George Monbiot's comments in the Guardian about how Copenhagen wasn't about saving the planet, but more about saving our addiction to a lifestyle and economy based on consumerism. Being wary of silver bullets, could projects such as the super grid enable us to have our cake and eat it? I simply don't know. What with China rationing it's exports of rare earth metals (97% of the worlds REM are mined in China/outer Mongolia) which are essential ingredients in "green" technology such as wind turbines - and not so green technology such as missile guidance systems, I'm quite scared about our future.

Jay, when I was a kid the media wrote of the year 2000 as some distant science fiction world where we would all wear silver suits, drive hovercraft and have strange haircuts. It didn't quite happen like that, except for my haircut. Same with our energy future, it won't all be like we read about now, but some things will.

We also grew up thinking that either the Russians or the Americans were going to blow us all up (I don't remember how we believed this and the silver suits thing...), which of course they didn't. We seem to avoid disaster despite ourselves, but not through precision planning.

Despite all our arrogance and confidence we don't seem very good at planning the future, and I mean that at a national and personal level. This might be seen as stupidity, but I've come to think that it isn't really possible to predict the future with any certainty - otherwise I'd be rich!! What government would have let the credit crunch happen if they'd predicted it? Who'd have gone to war in Afghanistan if they'd known it was going to be so difficult?

I'm starting to think that the best way of dealing with the future is to have some sort of loose plan, but:

a)..... Try to avoid specific actions (invade Afghanistan) where there is a broad range of unknown outcomes - you might not like some of them (war is chaos, so who was to know that they'd fight back!). Although we all laughed at Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns" comment, in retrospect it was probably the only sensible thing he ever said.

b) .... Try and create flexible situations where you'll benefit whatever the outcome. The Supergrid, or whatever it's called, seems to fit here quite well as although we can't predict which energy generation technologies will work best, we can create an infrastructure that supports them.

The technology of the atomic bomb seemed to have brought us to the end of the world forty years ago, and whilst I will concede that I don't have a personal robot to vacuum clean and make the tea, technology has brought us an awful long way from those days, and I don't see why technology can't take us to an even better future, but I don't know how. But I hope there are hovercraft.

John

Hi all

I do urge everyone to read Dr John Etherington's book "The Wind Farm Scam". The best expose of this scandalous industry.

Regards

John Bainbridge
stravaigerjohn

I've always had my suspicions but couldn't prove much. After reading The WindFarm Scam I'm now convinced of the almost useless nature of wind turbines on the scale they're being promoted. Essential reading for anyone who loves the wild places and needs some good ammunition to fight the spin from the renewables lobby

Me again. John Bainbridge has written to TGO suggesting that those who come to Scotland to climb hills should boycott the country until the Scottish Government takes a different stance on landscape protection. Could this be a goer? It would certainly hurt the tourist industry, most of which is opposed to the windfarm scam, but would the threat be enough to make Scotland's (could do the same for Wales and Cumbria, and Yorkshire, and Derbyshire, and Dartmoor etc) Government take a new direction? What do you think?

I think boycotting the tourist industry because you don't like what the electricity companies are doing is absurd.

John

I'm actually all in favour of consumers using their spending power, but in this case even if it were possible to make a big dent in the tourist economy, MPs would simply point out that the tourist industry was in decline and stress the importance of other industries such as energy.

John

Dear All

I think one thing we should do is stop calling these hideous structures "Wind Farms".

They are not! They are Wind Factories

And we should no more tolerate their construction in Britain's wild places than we would any other industrial structure.

John Bainbridge