OPINION: Wind Farms

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The following article represents the other side of the alternative energy debate. What do you think? What's your opinion on this issue?

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Wind Farms by Val Oliver

As we live in the middle of England with the nearest coastline some sixty miles away I don't often get to see it. So on Christmas Eve last, as a passenger on a drive to Holyhead, I was quite looking forward to the trip.We were to avoid the snow in Snowdonia by travelling the A55 along the north coast of Wales, a route I had not driven for quite a few years.

For those who don't know this area the whole coastline is a holiday destination. Towns and villages are interspersed with sand dunes, endless beaches and craggy headlands. It also must have the largest compilation of holiday camps and caravan parks in the country, but then you look out to sea. I have to say, I was very pleased I was not driving, because there, stretched before us like an army from the ''War of the Worlds'' wind turbines, scores of them, what an awful sight.

This once beautiful coastline has been defaced in the name of renewable energy. I have seen four or five of these turbines lined up inland but nothing on this scale. What are the people involved with approving these things thinking. They must be able to do better than this.

It would appear that we must spend money like water to foreign companies to erect these monsters on the basis that we may get some power if the wind blows at the right speed and it doesn't get too cold. They tend not to work when you need them most, especially in very cold still weather such as experienced before Christmas. Are we so afraid to look at the obvious. Here we are surrounded by water, well blessed with rivers and lakes and we have knowledge of its power, it never stops, unlike the wind.

I have looked at many websites since Christmas Eve in the hope that maybe one could convince me that wind turbines are a good idea but not one can. They can produce figures on how much CO2 they save, providing it is windy but they cannot or will not say how much these things cost to start up and run. They will tell you that the UK is the best place in Europe for them as luckily 40% of Europe's wind comes across us, their words not mine. Why do we have to ruin the planet to save it? If we spent half the cost of wind generation on further research into wave power we would have it by now .It would be clean, reliable, constant and invisible.

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