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The Trouble with Windmills by Chris Hughes - April 2006
Long ago when the world was a better place, so legend has it, the East Riding had many windmills and everybody loved them. They stood on top of a hill and ground the bones of Napoleon’s armies into fertiliser which, when spread upon the fields of East Yorkshire made them fertile. Then the resulting grain was ground by further windmills into flour, which, in its turn fed the toiling masses of the West Riding. This made the East Riding comparatively rich and everyone was happy. Of course like all good fairy stories there was an evil ogre, this one took the form of an indirect subsidy known as Corn Laws, and we are all familiar with the national problems he caused.
Someone once said history repeats it’s self. Well, er! not quite, the present crop of windmills appears to be making the East Riding most unhappy. Whilst, simultaneously creating divisions within its society as the different factions jump on the band wagon, all complete with their own agendas. One wonders who will be speaking to whom by the time the twenty first century varieties are built, or otherwise, as the case may be. What we must ask ourselves is this strange malaise that is destroying the last visages of our rural idyll, surely it cannot be electricity? For, if this were the case the destruction would be minimal. No, I am afraid that it is the familiar, age old demon twins, Money and Power, ably assisted by the malignant dwarf ‘Bubble Reputation’.
During this unfolding drama we shall all no doubt stand at the grave of Democracy, wailing at the never ending stream of referendums (or is it referenda), couched in such Blairite terminology as make only one answer possible. ‘Do you believe in windmills in principal’? If we clap our hands as we answer this, the windmills, like J M Barrie’s fairy Tinkerbell, will be saved.
Of course it would help if the population knew what the fuss was about, but unfortunately not all have access to the oracle ‘internet’, and those that do assume that everyone is like them. It does really seem a little unfair.
To return to the topical windmills we must ask a few questions. Why for instance are they to be situated in the valley of the River Hull when everybody and his dog know that the most efficient place is still on the top of a hill? Again, why must they be situated in the centre of what is, by rural standards, a highly populated area. By general consensus wind farms are intrusive and visually undesirable or they would not have a negative effect on the price of housing. Is the price to be paid by the general public too great, for what is in actuality a minute amount of green energy? What is the point in having Sights of Special Scientific Interest if they are to be consigned to a cultural dustbin at a moments notice? I may be naive but I thought the whole point of having these designations was to protect such areas from development.
To avoid the charges of negativity perhaps the following may be pertinent. The nineteenth century possessed an alternative, a device called watermill, but little is heard of this mechanism today. Once, when I was young and stupid my travels took me south of the Watford Gap, there I was privileged to behold one such primitive device producing electricity. Wind farms per sê are technically far better situated in shallow coastal waters or on high exposed moor land where they have access to more wind, and do not visually offend so many people; however such installations do incur a greater cost.
One would be hesitant to advocate nuclear power as it has problems of its own, but it may come to that. In which case why despoil areas of diminishing countryside and people’s quality of life for an amount of power that would not be noticed within a nuclear power stations generating capacity.
The trouble is modern windmills are nowhere near the ultimate answer, they are nothing but a cheap and fast form of window dressing, perpetrated by the present government to disguise the fact that they and their predecessors have wasted the breathing space given to the British people by North Sea oil.
Chris Hughes
[back to top
Long ago when the world was a better place, so legend has it, the East Riding had many windmills and everybody loved them. They stood on top of a hill and ground the bones of Napoleon’s armies into fertiliser which, when spread upon the fields of East Yorkshire made them fertile. Then the resulting grain was ground by further windmills into flour, which, in its turn fed the toiling masses of the West Riding. This made the East Riding comparatively rich and everyone was happy. Of course like all good fairy stories there was an evil ogre, this one took the form of an indirect subsidy known as Corn Laws, and we are all familiar with the national problems he caused.
Someone once said history repeats it’s self. Well, er! not quite, the present crop of windmills appears to be making the East Riding most unhappy. Whilst, simultaneously creating divisions within its society as the different factions jump on the band wagon, all complete with their own agendas. One wonders who will be speaking to whom by the time the twenty first century varieties are built, or otherwise, as the case may be. What we must ask ourselves is this strange malaise that is destroying the last visages of our rural idyll, surely it cannot be electricity? For, if this were the case the destruction would be minimal. No, I am afraid that it is the familiar, age old demon twins, Money and Power, ably assisted by the malignant dwarf ‘Bubble Reputation’.
During this unfolding drama we shall all no doubt stand at the grave of Democracy, wailing at the never ending stream of referendums (or is it referenda), couched in such Blairite terminology as make only one answer possible. ‘Do you believe in windmills in principal’? If we clap our hands as we answer this, the windmills, like J M Barrie’s fairy Tinkerbell, will be saved.
Of course it would help if the population knew what the fuss was about, but unfortunately not all have access to the oracle ‘internet’, and those that do assume that everyone is like them. It does really seem a little unfair.
To return to the topical windmills we must ask a few questions. Why for instance are they to be situated in the valley of the River Hull when everybody and his dog know that the most efficient place is still on the top of a hill? Again, why must they be situated in the centre of what is, by rural standards, a highly populated area. By general consensus wind farms are intrusive and visually undesirable or they would not have a negative effect on the price of housing. Is the price to be paid by the general public too great, for what is in actuality a minute amount of green energy? What is the point in having Sights of Special Scientific Interest if they are to be consigned to a cultural dustbin at a moments notice? I may be naive but I thought the whole point of having these designations was to protect such areas from development.
To avoid the charges of negativity perhaps the following may be pertinent. The nineteenth century possessed an alternative, a device called watermill, but little is heard of this mechanism today. Once, when I was young and stupid my travels took me south of the Watford Gap, there I was privileged to behold one such primitive device producing electricity. Wind farms per sê are technically far better situated in shallow coastal waters or on high exposed moor land where they have access to more wind, and do not visually offend so many people; however such installations do incur a greater cost.
One would be hesitant to advocate nuclear power as it has problems of its own, but it may come to that. In which case why despoil areas of diminishing countryside and people’s quality of life for an amount of power that would not be noticed within a nuclear power stations generating capacity.
The trouble is modern windmills are nowhere near the ultimate answer, they are nothing but a cheap and fast form of window dressing, perpetrated by the present government to disguise the fact that they and their predecessors have wasted the breathing space given to the British people by North Sea oil.
Chris Hughes
[back to top
